Air India flight carrying students evacuated from Ukrainian city Sumy lands in Delhi

NEW DELHI: An Air India flight from Poland's Rzeszow carrying students evacuated from northeastern Ukrainian city Sumy, landed in Delhi on Friday morning, officials said. The flight had taken off from Rzeszow around 11.30 pm (IST) on Thursday and landed in Delhi at 5.45 am on Friday, they said.

India has sent three flights to Poland to bring back 600 students evacuated from Sumy. Another flight is expected to land in Delhi around 8.40 am, officials said. According to the details shared by the students with PTI, the first flight was for first, second and third-year students. The second flight is for fourth and fifth-year students and the third is for those with pets, fifth and sixth-year students and for any other who may have been left behind, they said.

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The Indian nationals were taken from Sumy in a convoy of 13 buses escorted by the International Committee of the Red Cross to Poltava, Anshad Ali, a student coordinator, said.The students had boarded a special train from Lviv for Poland. They reached Poland on Thursday.

"We have reached Poland, from here we are expected to take the flight for India," said Jisna Jiji, a 25-year-old medical student. Covering hundreds of miles across Ukraine, using multiple means of transport, the students were evacuated from the war-hit east European country after their two weeks of excruciating stay in beleaguered Sumy.

The Indian government is carrying out a challenging evacuation exercise under Operation Ganga to help stranded Indians leave Ukraine. The operation to evacuate the 600 students from Sumy began on Tuesday morning.