The Indian Air Force (IAF) has carried out a “daring” operation to rescue 121 Indians from a “small airstrip” located in Wadi Sayyidna, nearly 40 kilometers north of Khartoum, a Defence Ministry spokesman said on Saturday.
A C-130J transport aircraft of the IAF landed at the airstrip during the night of 27/28 April to rescue the stranded Indians who had “no means” to reach Port Sudan, which has served as a hub for evacuations for New Delhi and other foreign governments.
The Indian nationals included a pregnant woman and others with medical conditions, according to the spokesman.
The official added that it took the IAF plane nearly two-and-half hours to transport the stranded Indians from Wadi Sayyidna to Jeddah, which has served as a logistical base for the Indian evacuation operations.
The ministry has remarked that the “operation will go down in the annals of IAF history for its sheer audacity and flawless execution - akin to that carried out in Kabul”, when New Delhi evacuated its diplomatic personnel from Kabul just days after the Taliban takeover in August 2021.
‘Operation Kaveri’
The spokesman also said on Saturday that nearly 2,400 Indians have been safely evacuated from Sudan so far.
According to New Delhi, around 1,600 Indians have already reached India, and the remaining ones are in Jeddah.
India has established three control rooms - in New Delhi, Jeddah and Port Sudan - to help the evacuations.
New Delhi has also based its two C-130J aircraft in Jeddah so that they can hop over to Sudan to evacuate Indians. Three ships from the Indian navy - the INS Sumedha, INS Teg and INS Tarkash - have also been deployed to Port Sudan to ferry the Indians to Jeddah, from where they are taking onward flights to India.
The Indian authorities have said that they are in close touch with the Saudi Arabian authorities to coordinate these evacuations because of Jeddah’s geographical proximity to Sudan.
The Sudanese Health Ministry has said that nearly 512 people have been killed and more than 4,000 have been injured in the fighting between the country's armed forces and he Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group since 15 April. Although the two sides agreed to extend the 'humanitarian ceasefire' by 72 hours on Thursday, reports suggest that fighting was witnessed between them in several parts of the country on Friday.