New Delhi: India on Wednesday evacuated 296 Indian citizens and four Nepalese nationals from Iran amid the ongoing conflict with Israel, officials said.
With this, the number of Indian nationals evacuated from Iran so far under Operation Sindhu stands at 3,154, they said.
“#OperationSindhu update 296 Indian and 4 Nepalese nationals were evacuated from Iran on a special flight that arrived in New Delhi from Mashhad at 16:30 hrs on 25th June. 3154 Indian nationals have now been brought home from Iran as part of #OperationSindhu,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal posted on X.
India on Tuesday had evacuated over 1,100 citizens from Iran and Israel.
It brought back 594 Indians from Israel, using C-17 heavy-lift aircraft of the Indian Air Force to fly out over 400 people after they were moved out of Israel to Jordan and Egypt by land transit points.
Also, 161 Indians were brought back in a chartered flight from Amman after they moved to the Jordanian capital from Israel by road.
A total of 573 Indians, three Sri Lankan and two Nepalese nationals were evacuated from Iran in two chartered flights on Tuesday, according to details shared by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
Several other flights have brought Indian nationals back home after being evacuated from Iran in the past several days.
Israel and Iran have fired hundreds of missiles and drones at each other’s cities and military and strategic facilities since the hostilities began over a week ago.
The tensions escalated significantly following the US bombing of three major Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday morning.
India has evacuated its nationals on chartered flights operated from the Iranian city of Mashhad, the Armenian capital of Yerevan and the Turkmenistan capital of Ashgabat since June 18. Iran lifted airspace restrictions on June 20 to facilitate three chartered flights from Mashhad.
The first flight landed in New Delhi late on Friday last week with 290 Indians, and the second one landed in the national capital on Saturday afternoon with 310 Indians.
Another flight had arrived from the Armenian capital city of Yerevan on Thursday. A special evacuation flight from Ashgabat had landed in New Delhi early on Saturday morning.
