NEW DELHI: Thirteen flights with more than 2,200 Indian evacuees will operate from Ukraine's neighbouring countries to India on Sunday, the Ministry of External Affairs said.
"During the next 24 hours, we have close to 13 flights scheduled to bring back Indians who have crossed the Ukrainian border on the Western side," said MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi.
There are close to 300 students in the safe zone of Pesochin and all of them would be transported to the border by Saturday. There are no Indians left in Kharkiv and the only area of concern is Sumy where nearly 700 Indian students have been stranded.
Sumy is just about 60 km away from the Russian border but since there is constant shelling, it isn’t safe for students to step out.
"The students are largely concentrated in two camps which is safe for them. They did face some shortage of water and electricity outages yesterday, but all that has been restored now. We are trying all options to get them out with safety and they continue to be our primary area of concern," Bagchi said.
Around 17,333 Indians have returned to India from Ukraine since the first advisory was issued by the Indian embassy in Kyiv.
Out of these 13,330 have returned through the 63 evacuation flights that have been arranged by the Indian government. Around 4,000 Indians had returned prior to the outbreak of the conflict.
India has been pressing for a ceasefire from both Russia and Ukraine, and till that actually happens it would not be safe to evacuate the students who are stranded there.
According to some estimates, there aren’t more than 1000 Indians left in Ukraine now. Most of those who have crossed the border would return to India by Sunday.