A United Nations agency said on Thursday that it has started relocating “non-critical” staff from South Sudan following five-days of fighting that saw hundreds of people killed and more than 36,000 others displaced.
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The team is charged with safe extraction of over 600 Indians stuck in the middle of civil war like situation in South Sudan. She requested all Indians to evacuate from the country with these planes as it will be hard to make similar efforts if the situation worsens in the future.
The first aircraft will travel to Entebbe in Uganda for a refuelling halt of approximately three hours, following which they will depart for India, landing first in Thiruvananthapuram early tomorrow morning and thereafter coming to Delhi.
However, the passenger, whose name was not immediately known, said that he had no choice but to return to the strife-torn country as he had invested heavily there.
This is also the case of most of the Keralties, who have been evacuated from the country. We have sent two aircrafts for you.
Union Sports Minister Vijay Goel received Minister of State for External Affairs General (Retd.) VK Singh, who was leading the evacuation operation named as “Sankat Mochan”, at the Palam Airport.
Uganda military personnel are seen atop military and police trucks driving towards Juba, South Sudan, at Nimule border point on July 14, 2016.
Singh is accompanied by Amar Sinha, secretary (economic relations) in the external affairs ministry, joint secretary Satbir Singh and director Anjani Kumar.
This fragile peace has allowed us to assist British nationals to leave Juba and bring them to safety.
The truce in Juba was implemented Monday after four days of heavy fighting between rival forces left more than 270 people dead.
“There are around 600 Indians in South Sudan, of them 450 are in Juba (capital city of South Sudan) and almost 150 are outside Juba”.
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Yesterday, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hervé Ladsous told the Security Council that the fighting between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and those backing First Vice-President Riek Machar made the movement of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) hard although the Mission was able to conduct limited patrolling.
