Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, April 24: India has started an operation to evacuate its people from Sudan, which is experiencing unrest. Operation Kaveri is the name of the rescue effort. On Monday, roughly 500 Indians arrived in Port Sudan as part of Operation Kaveri, according to a tweet from External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
“Operation Kaveri gets underway to bring back our citizens stranded in Sudan. About 500 Indians have reached Port Sudan. More on their way. Our ships and aircraft are set to bring them back home. Committed to assist all our bretheren in Sudan,” Jaishankar tweeted.
Operation Kaveri is the most recent in a string of evacuation operations that India has carried out over the years to save its own people and the nationals of friendly countries who were trapped in war zones like Afghanistan and Ukraine.
A day after the Ministry of External Affairs indicated in a statement that two C-130 aircraft and the navy ship INS Sumedha are on standby to safely evacuate stranded Indians, the evacuation operation was commenced. The official statistics indicate that there are about 4,000 Indians living in Sudan.
The evacuation occurs a few days after S. Jaishankar met with his Saudi Arabian and UAE counterparts for negotiations. “Practical support on the ground” had been pledged by both nations.
In Sudan, a violent power struggle between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is taking place all throughout the nation. Conflict over a globally supported proposal to establish a new civilian government two years after the military coup and four years after the overthrow of tyrant Omar al-Bashir set off the violence. Both parties charge each other with obstructing the transition.