Govt: 9,209 Indians evacuated from Libya

Mar 05, 2011 |

Age Correspondent

New Delhi

The government informed Parliament on Friday that 9,209 Indian nationals — over half of the total Indians stranded in strife-torn Libya — have been evacuated from the country so far and it hopes to complete the entire process of evacuation by March 10.
Operation Safe Homecoming was launched by the government to bring home thousands of Indian nationals stranded in conflict-torn Libya. “By the end of the day on Friday, 9,209 Indian nationals would have been evacuated out of Libya, including 1,450 out of Tripoli and Sehba by Air India flights. We expect to complete the exercise of evacuating all those desirous of leaving Libya by March 10. It may be noted that some Indian nationals have opted to stay on Libya,” Union minister of state for external affairs Preneet Kaur said in a statement in Rajya Sabha.
“There is a certain anxiety in Indians in Libya but i don’t think there is a great deal of panic. Wee are not being targeted in any way. They have allowed our ships there. It is an internal problem. Those Indians who do not want to come back by choice will be left there,” Ms Kaur said.
“The first special flight of Air India left Libya on February 26. Since then, an air bridge has been established between Tripoli and Delhi,” Preneet Kaur said.
Members in the Rajya Sabha on Friday expressed anguish over slow progress in the evacuation and safety of Indians stranded in Libya. This prompted deputy chairman K. Rahman Khan to direct the government to apprise the House on Friday itself of the latest steps being taken to bring Indians back from Libya. Tiruchi Siva (DMK) sought an immediate response from the government. He was agitated when the chair reminded him that he could only associate with P. Rajeev (CPI-M) who raised the issue during Zero Hour. “Our people are stranded. You (Chair) are bothered about time. You are not permitting to express our views,” he said.
He was supported by several senior members from BJP, BJD, SP, AIADMK, NCP and Left parties. Mr Siva said that in the backdrop of the ultimatum, the Chinese and the Philippines have already evacuated their nationals.
“Why is the progress slow on the Indian side,” he asked.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/61265" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-9e5d3179eb5922e20197cfad178017bc" value="form-9e5d3179eb5922e20197cfad178017bc" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="84598161" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>