New Delhi: After a stopover in Mumbai for refuelling, the Air India Boeing 777 carrying the 46 Indian nurses has landed in Kochi (Kerala). The special Air India flight sent to bring back the nurses and over 100 others has taken off from the airport in Erbil in the autonomous region of Kurdistan.
The nurses were freed by Sunni militant group ISIS in war-torn Iraq on Thursday evening. The plane was earlier not granted permission to land in Erbil and diverted to Iran. This was due to an ‘information deficit’ or because of security concerns in the troubled region, said sources. Communication has now been established between the two sides, they said.
The Air India Boeing 777 will carry the passengers directly to Kochi as most of the Indians being brought back belong to Kerala. The plane, carrying some officials of the Ministry of External Affairs and the Kerala government, will bring over 100 other Indians who were trapped in the strife-torn country.
“We are very happy,” Marina Jose, one of the freed nurses, told NDTV. She added that the militants had behaved well with them. She was now looking forward to going home to her family, said Ms Jose.
Air India had also kept two Boeing 747 jumbos ready to fly at short notice, while cockpit and cabin crew to operate them were also on standby. Air India’s special customer service team would be at Kochi airport to provide all necessary assistance to the passengers.
The 46 Indian and 10 Bangladeshi nurses had been living in a hospital in Tikrit, the birthplace of former president Saddam Hussein, which has seen fierce fighting this week as Iraqi troops battle to regain control of the city from the Sunni insurgent group ISIS or the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
On Thursday, they were forced to board two buses and were taken to Mosul. They were reportedly kept at a hospital there.
“Hope has triumphed. The nurses moved against their will are free,” foreign ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said in New Delhi as news of the nurses being freed by the militants was confirmed.
The 39 Indian construction workers kidnapped two weeks ago in Mosul remain in captivity. Akbaruddin said there were a “significant number of other Indians” in ISIS captivity. “We will leave no stone unturned to get back our nationals from an extremely difficult situation,” he said.
About 10,000 Indians work in Iraq. Scores of them have returned to India since fighting began. The government says some 900 people are ready to fly home.
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