An Indian Navy warship brought back 698 people from the Maldives on Sunday, while Air India flights from the United Kingdom, Singapore and Philippines, are expected to repatriate around 800 more
Agencies
New Delhi, May 10:
Over 1,000 Indian nationals stranded abroad by the coronavirus lockdown were repatriated on Sunday, the fourth day of a mammoth operation by the government that involves sending commercial passenger jets and Indian Navy warships to over a dozen countries. Billed as India’s largest peacetime repatriation exercise, national carrier Air India (and Air India Express) will carry out “Operation Vande Bharat”, the first phase of which will see around 15,000 people brought back on 64 flights landing at 14 airports between May 7 and May 15. Meanwhile, naval ships have begun “Operation Samudra Setu”, under which more Indians will be brought back. All those being repatriated will be screened before boarding and only those with no signs of COVID-19 infection will be allowed to return. All passengers will be screened on arrival as well, and be sent to a mandatory 14-day quarantine period.
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Warship INS Jalshawa docked at Kerala’s Kochi port at 9.30 am Sunday carrying 698 Indians from the island nation of Maldives. Nineteen pregnant women were among those on board the ship, which set sail from Male on May 8. The passengers, who thanked the Navy for taking good care of them during the journey, had paid $40 as “repatriation service charge”, the High Commission of India in the Maldives said.
Videos of the boarding process, shared by the High Commission, showed Indian nationals wearing face masks and following social distancing protocols as they were screened for COVID-19 infection by officials in protective suits.
A second Navy ship – INS Magar – docked at Male Sunday afternoon. The ship, originally designed for landing operations, will bring back around 200 people from the Maldives; they will be quartered in specially-prepared quarters, with care being taken to avoid crowding in common areas like halls, dining rooms and bathrooms.
Earlier today an Air India flight carrying 329 people from the United Kingdom landed at Mumbai airport. Special flight AI-130 – a Boeing-777 plane – touched down at 1.30 am according to sources. A civil aviation ministry spokesperson has said two more flights – from Singapore and the Philippines – are scheduled to arrive in Mumbai later in the day. The flight from Singapore will carry 243 passengers while that from Philippines capital Manila will bring back 241 Indians.
The first repatriation flight from the United States took off from the San Francisco International Airport on Sunday, with around 200 people on board, news agency ANI reported. It will fly people to Mumbai and Hyderabad. In total seven Air India flights have been scheduled from the US in the first phase of repatriation. One of these will fly people from New Jersey’s Newark International Airport to Mumbai and Ahmedabad, while another will fly from Newark to Delhi and Hyderabad on May 14.
Two others will fly out from Chicago to Mumbai and Chennai (on May 11) and Delhi and Hyderabad (May 15), with yet another scheduled from Washington, D.C. to Delhi on May 12. As many as 25,000 people have registered to be flown back from the United States, TS Sandhu, India’s Ambassador to the US, told ANI.
Late Saturday evening Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan confirmed that two Indians, among 363 repatriated from Dubai and Abu Dhabi that landed on Thursday, tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. The flight was the first in the “Vande Bharat” mission. Kerala, which has nearly flattened the coronavirus curve with only five new cases in the first week of May, now has 17 active cases, with 505 being reported overall.
On Saturday over 1,300 Indians were flown back from the Gulf region, Malaysia and Bangladesh, according to Union Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri. An Indian national brought back from Sharjah in the UAE said he had lost his job due to the coronavirus outbreak and had not been paid for four months before his employer paid for his flight home.
All those being repatriated on Air India, India Express services have paid for their flights home, with ticket prices ranging from Rs 12,000 for flights from Bangladesh capital Dhaka to Rs 1 lakh for travel from the United States.
India has over 60,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases so far and over 2,000 deaths have been linked to the virus. Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a “total lockdown” in March that has been extended to May 17. Under the terms of the lockdown, all international travel had been stopped, with planes grounded and ships docked.
