Over 70 Indians evacuated from Iraq arrive in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: The plane carrying Indian stranded in strife-torn Iraq landed in Hyderabad on Saturday afternoon.

Total, 78 people got-off the plane in the city and it will further move to Delhi. Evacuees informed that 50 others from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are stranded in a factory in Kirkuk.

Earlier, 46 nurses were dropped in Kochi. Nurses returned home by this special Air India flight to a happy reunion with their families, bringing to an end their about month-long ordeal.

Read: ‘Unpaid, nurses risked their life’

Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy whose coordinated effort with the Union Government that ensured liberty to nurses from his state, besides another who hails from Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu received them at the airport.

Family members of nurses, on whose face a sigh of relief was writ large had assembled in large numbers to see their beloved ones return and were joined by political leaders from BJP and Congress at the airport.

Read: Air India flight was not allowed at Erbil airport: Kerala CM

The Air India Boeing 777 had stopped at Mumbai briefly at 8:43 am for refuelling. The flight made a 'technical halt' in Mumbai for refuelling and catering supplies.

An Air India spokesperson said that none of the Indian nurses alighted in Mumbai. “About an hour after landing here in Mumbai, the flight took off for Kochi,” added the spokesperson.

Read: Iraq Crisis: Returning home left them broke

Besides the nurses, the plane is also carrying 137 other Indian nationals, including 70 from Kirkuk in the northern part of Iraq.

Read: Release of nurses a diplomatic feat

A joint-secretary level IFS officer and an IAS woman officer from Kerala are among the Indian officials travelling on the chartered flight.

The nurses reached Erbil by road on Friday night, from where were flown by the special Air India flight.

“It (release of the nurses) didn’t happen just like that. There were enormous efforts undertaken both in and out of Iraq... India has friends both in and out of Iraq. We knocked on many doors, one door opened,” MEA spokesman Syed Akbaruddin told reporters in New Delhi. It is not clear if any ransom was paid to secure the release of the nurses.

Asked for details on exactly how the nurses’ release was secured and what the captors’ demands were, the MEA spokesman declined to go into details, saying there were still some Indians in captivity and the process of freeing them was “under way”, therefore, anything that was said might have an impact. “We will not say how we are operating, with whom and when,” the spokesman said when asked again how the release was secured.