3 Indian naval ships to rescue those stranded in the Gulf, Maldives

New Delhi: Three Navy ships set sail on Tuesday to bring back Indian citizens stranded in Maldives and UAE because of lockdown imposed to contain spread of the coronavirus. These are part of the total 14 ships kept ready to bring back those stranded in the Gulf nations.

Two left for Maldives and one for Dubai. These three ships can bring around 2,000 people while maintaining social distancing. Amphibious transport dock INS Jalaswa and warfare vessel INS Magar set sails for the Maldives and INS Shardul attached to Southern Naval Command sailed for Dubai.

INS Shardul is expected to dock at Dubai on Thursday and the details of evacuation will be decided by the Indian mission over there. Thereafter it will take another two days for the vessel to return to Kochi.

These ships have made arrangements as per the standard protocol laid out to deal with suspected Covid people like social distancing and sanitization. The Indian Navy has removed non-essential equipment in order to accommodate the evacuees.

Other 11 ships are on standby so far and as the central government issues directions, they would start sailing, said as senior Indian Navy official. Earlier, Navy had carried out evacuation efforts in war-torn areas like Lebanon (2006) and Yemen (2015).

A Before that, evacuation was carried in 1990 during the first Gulf war between Iraq and Kuwait where around 1.5 lakh people were evacuated. Meanwhile, the Ministry for Civil Aviation has unveiled a detailed schedule for the evacuation of stranded citizens from various countries. As per schedule 64 flights will be operated aiming to bring 15,000 Indians from May 7 to May 14.

In addition to that, 30 Air Force aircraft has been put on standby to carry out evacuation operations the moment there is a go ahead from central government. Air Force has already evacuated citizens from countries affected by Covid frequently since January, which includes flights to China, Japan, Iran, Kuwait and Italy. The force has stated that they have kept C-17 Globemaster and C-130s on standby and can be used whenever is required.