"India evacuates nationals of 26 countries in Yemen, emerges as hero "-- India Today
04/08/2015

India has helped 232 nationals from 26 countries including the US, France, Italy,Canada and UK from the strife-torn Yemen and emerged as the hero at the global level.

It has also evacuated the nationals of its neighbours Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka. While Pakistan had not sought help for the evacuation of its nationals, India during the operation also rescued Pakistani nationals.

On Wednesday, India decided to extend air evacuation from Yemen till Thursday following a rescue request by a group of 140 nurses even as it pulled out another 450 people from the war-ravaged country, taking the total number of evacuees to 4,500

India had received requests from 26 countries, including the US, Bangladesh and Iraq,for assistance in evacuating their nationals from the strife-torn country.

In a series of tweets, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin announced: "We will end our air evacuation efforts from Sana'a tomorrow,8th April. All who want to avail should leave tomorrow."

In his tweets, he announced: "A thousand coming back tonight to India, if all goes well. 5 flights planned from Djibouti to India carrying those evacuated from Yemen."

"232 persons from 26 countries evacuated by India from Yemen. Efforts continuing."

Evacuation efforts in Sana'a were successful with three Air India flights taking off from the Yemeni capital with 600 passengers.

The spokesperson also retweeted German envoy Michael Steiner's 'thank you' tweet:"India helped evacuate also Germans out of Yemen. Thank you India!"

He also said India has accepted "Pakistan's offer to fly back from Karachi by special plane 11 Indians evacuated by Pakistani naval ship from Yemen".

Yemen has been witnessing fierce battle between Saudi-led coalition and Shiite rebels, who have battled their way into various cities Yemen including in the former stronghold of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi who has fled overseas.