Special flight from Armenia lands in India with 173 Indians from Iran

Earlier, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that India, so far have evacuated 3,426 Indian nationals from Iran and 818 Indian nationals from Israel in Operation Sindhu

A special evacuation flight from Armenia carrying 173 Indian nationals living in Iran landed in the national capital late on Thursday evening, Ministry of External Affairs said.

The special evacuation flight from Yerevan, Armenia, landed at 10:30 PM (IST) on Thursday with 173 Indian nationals from Iran.

"#OperationSindhu A special evacuation flight from Yerevan, Armenia, landed in New Delhi at 22:30 hrs on 26th June, bringing home 173 Indian nationals from Iran. As part of #OperationSindhu, a total of 4415 Indian nationals (3597 from Iran and 818 from Israel) have been evacuated so far using 19 special evacuation flights including 3 IAF aircraft. 14 OCI card-holders, 9 Nepali nationals, 4 Sri Lankan nationals and 1 Iranian spouse of an Indian national were also evacuated from Iran," MEA spokesperson said.

Evacuees expressed gratitude to the government for bringing them back safely to India under Operation Sindhu.

"The government helped us in every aspect; they did whatever they could," said an Indian student who has been evacuated from Iran.

Another student thanked the government and said, "I thank our Prime Minister, External Affairs Ministry, on behalf of all the students, as we received very good facilities."

Earlier, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that India, so far have evacuated 3,426 Indian nationals from Iran and 818 Indian nationals from Israel in Operation Sindhu.

Addressing a weekly briefing on Thursday, Jaiswal said, "We launched Operation Sindhu on the 18th of June. We have around 10,000 people from the Indian community in Iran, around 40,000 people in Israel who are Indian nationals."

Jaiswal also thanked the governments of Iran for opening their airspace for evacuation."We made a request, and they hope to open the airspace for us to evacuate our nationals. We are grateful to the government of Iran for this special gesture. We are also thankful to the government of Turkmenistan and Armenia for helping us evacuate our people," he said.

Operation Sindhu was launched by the Government of India to evacuate Indian nationals from Iran following conflict between Iran and Israel.