New Delhi: India on Monday decided to send four senior ministers as the prime minister’s special envoy to Ukraine’s bordering nations to oversee the evacuation of Indians and announced relief supplies to the war-torn country to help it deal with the humanitarian situation on its frontiers.
Chairing a high-level meeting, his second on Monday to review the efforts to back the Indians from Ukraine, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India will help people from neighbouring as well as developing countries who are stranded in Ukraine.
“The prime minister said that the entire government machinery is working round the clock to ensure that all Indian nationals there are safe and secure,” the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.
It said that Modi pointed out that the visit of four senior ministers as his special envoys to various nations will “energise the evacuation efforts” and that it is reflective of the priority the government attaches to it.
At a media briefing, the MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said Union Minister Hardeep Puri will go to Hungary, Jyotiraditya Scindia will oversee the evacuation process in Romania and Moldova, Kiren Rijiju will travel to Slovakia and Gen (retd) V K Singh is leaving for Poland.
“The prime minister noted that the first consignment of relief supplies to Ukraine to deal with the humanitarian situation on Ukraine’s borders would be despatched tomorrow,” the MEA said.
“Guided by India’s motto of the world being one family, the prime minister also stated that India will help people from neighbouring countries and developing countries who are stranded in Ukraine and may seek assistance,” it said.
The decisions came as India ramped up efforts to take out more citizens from the conflict zones notwithstanding the “complex and fluid” ground situation.
Bagchi, at the briefing, said around 8,000 Indians left Ukraine since the first advisory was issued earlier this month and a total of 1,396 Indians were brought back home in six flights after the evacuation mission was launched.
Two of these Air India flights from Romanian capital Bucharest and Hungarian capital Budapest landed in Delhi on Monday with 489 Indian nationals.
Other private carriers such as SpiceJet, IndiGo and Air India Express have also sent their planes to the two cities for evacuation of Indians as the Ukraine airspace is closed for civilian aircraft.
MEA officials told a parliamentary panel that 13 other flights are planned in the next 2-3 days and subsequently nine flights a day, according to sources.
Bagchi said India managed to accelerate the evacuation process in the last 24 hours as a new border crossing has been opened through Moldova for taking the Indians to Romania and there was an improvement in the movement of people through the Polish transit point.
Bagchi said India is encouraging its citizens, particularly students, to move towards Western Ukraine and emphasised that they should not reach the border directly .
Depleting food stocks and long queues for water are adding to the trauma of stranded Indian students some of whom have complained of being roughed up by security personnel on Ukraine borders and spending freezing nights out in the open.
I want my son in front of my eyes as soon as possible,” said Kamini Sharma, who is praying for the safe return of Vibhor Sharma (22), a resident of Indore in Madhya Pradesh. Vibhor is pursuing a medical course at the Ternopil National Medical University.
Payal Panwar, a final year medical student who returned to her Kotdwar home in Uttarakhand, said the stranded students need help of the Indian government and the Indian embassy people more while they are still inside Ukraine rather than when they have moved out of the war-torn country.
“While you are inside Ukraine it is really difficult with food supplies running out and no cash in ATMs” said Payal, who studies in Ivano-Frankivsk city in western Ukraine.
Amid mounting concerns over the safety of Indians in Ukraine, the country’s envoy Igor Polikha said that his government is helping the stranded Indians and extending assistance in their evacuation notwithstanding the “very difficult” ground situation.
Specifically asked about the safety of Indians, he said that assurance can only be given by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He also said that Ukraine was looking for humanitarian assistance from India.
Polikha also rubbished the suggestion that Ukrainian authorities were discriminating against Indian citizens after India abstained from a UN Security Council resolution deploring the Russian military attack on the country.
Bagchi said the “situation on the ground in terms of evacuation continues to be “complex and fluid” but India has managed to accelerate the evacuation process.
“You have seen media reports. Some of them are concerning. Nevertheless, we have been able to accelerate our evacuation process clearly over the last 24 hours,” he said.
The MEA spokesperson also urged the Indian students not to panic.
“I do not think the students should panic. They should try to go to the western parts of Ukraine while contacting our control rooms and sharing their locations so that we can get them registered for their exit,” he said.
Separately, the Indian embassy in Ukraine advised all Indian students stranded in Kyiv to reach the railway station in the Ukrainian capital for their onward journey to the western parts of the war-torn country.
However, an Indian student who managed to reach the Kyiv train station said Ukrainian guards were not allowing students to board trains and were also beating up people.
It’s getting difficult for us to stay here, Ansh Pandita told PTI as scores of Indian students, including women, sat huddled at the teeming Vokzal railway station in Kyiv, holding a large tricolour aloft so they could be recognised in the crowd and no one from the group gets lost.
With a large number of Indians stuck at the Polish border point along with several thousand others of different nationalities, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar spoke to his counterpart from Poland Zbigniew Rau
“Discussed the Ukraine developments with @RauZbigniew of Poland.
Appreciate Poland’s facilitation of the evacuation of Indian students from Ukraine. His words of support in that regard are very welcome,” he tweeted.
Bagchi said India’s focus has been on evacuating its nationals through the land border crossings, noting that there has been some improvement in the movement of people into Poland though the situation on its border is still difficult.
He said there has been progress in the evacuation of people along the border in Romania and that exiting through the Hungarian transit point is also picking up momentum.
Bagchi said flights are not a constraint.
“We will add more flights as needed. We are continually augmenting the number of MEA teams in border crossing points. We are also augmenting a number of officials in the nearby countries,” he said.
India is using the land routes to evacuate its citizens as Ukraine has closed its airspace for civilian aircraft following the Russian attack.
