Indian Embassy announces Vande Bharat Mission ‘phase 5’ to evacuate stranded Indian Nationals
The Government of India’s ”Vande Bharat” mission aiming at evacuating Indian nationals stranded abroad as attributable to restrictions on air travel, has begun on August 1. More flights will be conducted from many nations to India, the Indian Embassy announced.
Flights for Canada, the USA, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Germany, Australia, Thailand, UK, New Zealand, Singapore, Philippines, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and many more nations have been arranged under the fifth phase. Flights in Saudi will be from Dammam and Riyadh. No flights are listed from Jeddah.
The Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri stated that as India did prior, more flights and destinations will be included as this phase too.” Air India stated that “they have brought back more than 2.5 lakh stranded Indians from many nations under the Vande Bharat Mission.”
More than 939K stranded Indians have returned through different means under Vande Bharat Mission while nearly 120K have flown out to different parts of the world since 6 May 2020.
— Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) August 5, 2020
We continue to reach out to our citizens with a helping hand under Phase-5 of the mission. pic.twitter.com/7CSoKqSSra
The Vande Bharat Mission began on May 7, and now it’s in the fifth phase. Under the Mission, more than 7.88 lakh Indians stuck abroad due to the coronavirus pandemic have safely returned, Ministry of External Affairs stated.
Last Thursday, the MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava announced that around 1,03,976 Indians have come back from Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan by land borders too.
Article Credit: Mathrubhumi/ NDTV News
