India evacuates 1,400 nationals from Yemen by air and sea

The Indian navy assigned two warships, a patrol boat and two passenger ships for the evacuation effort, while the air force kept two C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft on standby, and national carrier Air India posted two planes in Muscat.

Indians evacuated from Yemen sit inside the Indian Air Force C17 Globemaster aircraft upon their arrival at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai on April 2, 2015. Press Trust of India/AShow more

NEW DELHI // India has evacuated more than a third of its 4,000 nationals caught in Yemen’s escalating violence.

Ten days into the Saudi Arabia-led coalition’s military intervention in Yemen, about 1,400 Indians have been evacuated from Aden, Sanaa and other towns, India’s foreign ministry said.

The first wave were ferried out of Aden on naval ships with more taken out on Air India flights after Yemeni authorities gave permission for the aircraft to land in Sanaa.

Most were taken first to Djibouti, where V K Singh, India’s deputy minister for external affairs and a former army general, has been overseeing the evacuations.

As Mr Singh left for Djibouti on Tuesday, the Indian navy assigned two warships, a patrol boat and two passenger ships for the evacuation effort, the air force kept two C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft on standby, and national carrier Air India posted two planes in Muscat, ready to fly to Sanaa.

“Initially, it wasn’t clear whether the Sanaa airport was damaged or not,” said Kabir Taneja, a New Delhi-based Middle East analyst. “India then had to spend more than 48 hours negotiating with Saudi Arabia for the bombing around the airport to stop long enough for Indian planes to land and take off.”

The first evacuation was carried out on Tuesday evening by the INS Sumitra, a patrol boat stationed in the Gulf of Aden on an antipiracy mission.

The boat sailed into Aden amid “a barrage of bombs,” a navy spokesman said. “The skyline lit up intermittently. It was pitch dark when the ship entered the port of Aden.”

The Sumitra carried 348 Indians from Aden to Djibouti, 12 hours’ sailing time away. The next day, it ferried 306 Indians from Hodeidah city, north of Aden.

On Thursday, the Indian Air Force began carrying citizens from Djibouti to India. A Globemaster with 190 people on board landed in Mumbai, while another with 168 people landed in Kochi, Kerala.

Jimmy George, 37, a biology teacher at the Mahatma Gandhi International School in Aden, was one of the 206 people from Kerala in the Sumitra’s first batch of evacuees from Aden. He returned to India with his wife and two daughters on Thursday on the Globemaster flight.

“Two weeks ago, our principal called a meeting and asked us to submit our passports to get our exit visas, saying that it was better to leave instead of staying,” Mr George told The National on Saturday, speaking from his hometown of Kottayam.

But before he and his family could fly out, airports in Yemen were closed to civilian flights. “Fortunately we were in touch with the Indian embassy, and they gave us information on when a ship would be coming to get us,” he said.

Mr George, who had been in Yemen for 10 years, said his home was far from the combat zone, where Houthi rebels and their allies were fighting forces loyal to President Abdrabu Mansur Hadi. “We couldn’t hear anything, so it was OK for us. But I knew others who could hear the bombardment, so for them it was terrible.”

The five-kilometres trip from his home to the Sumitra was relatively smooth. “Every 200 metres or so, there would be checkpoints manned by some of the local people, who were keeping an eye out for the Houthis,” Mr George said.

On Friday, after India received permission for Air India to land in Sanaa, 351 Indians were flown from the Yemeni capital to Djibouti.

Late that day, the two Globemaster planes landed in Mumbai from Djibouti, carrying a total of 334 people. Early on Saturday morning, an Air India flight with 330 evacuees landed in Kochi. All three flights included people who had been rescued by the Sumitra.

Syed Akbaruddin, the external affairs ministry spokesman, said on Twitter later on Saturday that another 300 Indians had been evacuated from Yemen and had reached Djibouti.

India has successfully brought home citizens from conflict zones on numerous occasions — most recently from Iraq last year after ISIL seized large areas of the country. It has also had to evacuate citizens from Libya in 2011 and from Lebanon in 2006, but its biggest operation was during the First Gulf War. Over the course of two months in 1990, India airlifted more than 110,000 of its nationals out of Iraq and Kuwait — the largest air evacuation in history.

“India has been very good at this ever since 1990,” Mr Taneja said.

There are about 7 million Indians working in the Middle East, he added. “That’s a huge number of people you’re responsible for.”

Many of these Indians have low-paying jobs, Mr Taneja said. “It’s not like they can go quickly to Dubai and catch the first Emirates out. Most of them cannot afford the ticket.”

In fact, some Indians in Yemen have decided not to return, either because they are owed money by their employers there or because they need their Yemeni salaries to repay debts back home, such as loans taken for their education or to pay job agents.

“For now I’m staying,” Meljo Joy, a male nurse in Aden, told Reuters. Mr Joy paid US$2,000 (Dh7,345) to a recruitment agent to get his job, which pays $600 a month, with free accommodation.

“In New Delhi, a famous hospital will give a maximum of $400 as salary. But accommodation and food is very expensive.”