COVID-19 lockdown: Navy begins evacuation of Indian nationals from Maldives

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 8

The Indian Navy, on Friday, commenced a massive operation to evacuate Indians, stranded on the Maldives, after the stay on all domestic and international flights was announced in the country to curb the spread of COVOD-19.

Named operation ‘Samundra Setu’ — meaning a bridge across the seas —two ships are expected to evacuate around 1,200 Indian nationals in one trip.

Around 1 pm Indian time, the Navy and its officials, in coordination with the Indian Embassy in the Maldives, commenced embarkation of Indian nationals onboard INS Jalashwa, an 18,000-tonne landing platform dock.

The second ship, INS Magar — a Landing Ship Tanks Large (LSTLs) — will also be boarding people on Saturday. The Jalashwa is scheduled to sail out of the Maldives on Friday night and will reach Kochi in Kerala on Sunday. The INS Magar is scheduled to sail out of the Maldives either Saturday evening or Sunday morning.

This is the biggest sea-route evacuation carried out by the Navy since its effort in March-April 2015, when a total of 3,074 people, including 1291 foreign nationals, were evacuated from Yemen after Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes against Iranian-allied Houthi rebels.

Both ships are amphibious and are hollow from the inside, allowing huge carrying capacity of relief material, rations, machines and hundreds of troops.

In the past, the Indian Navy carried out similar Non-Combatant Evacuation Operations (NEO) operations from overseas.

In 2006 ‘Operation Sukoon’ — meaning relief — was carried out to evacuate 2,200 Indians, Sri Lankans and Nepalese from Lebanon.