AS Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the successful conclusion of Operation Kaveri, the situation of civil war in Sudan was such that even big countries refused to evacuate their citizens from there. “But we brought back our people from such places where it was difficult to reach by plane.
Multiple alerts from the Indian Embassy in Sudan’s capital Khartoum; a risky operation carried out at night on an airstrip with a degraded surface; and a 850-km bus journey – Operation Kaveri marks one of the biggest evacuation operations executed by India in recent times.
“Prime Minister@narendramodi ‘s commitment to ensuring the safety and security of all Indians abroad was our inspiration,” tweeted External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
Named after a river
The evacuation programme, ‘Operation Kaveri’, was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 24 and named after one of the major rivers from South India. On April 23, an India Air Force C-130J was on standby in Jeddah and Indian Navy’s INS Sumedha had arrived in Port Sudan to rescue Indian citizens. Over 150 persons from 13 different countries had already arrived in Saudi Arabia on April 22. When an Indian Air Force C130 J flight carrying the last batch 47 passengers landed in India on May 9 to close the operation, all the 3,862 Indians had been moved out of Sudan.
A complex exercise
Moving passengers to Port Sudan from various locations across the country in precarious security circumstances was a complex exercise.
Through 17 Indian Air Force flights and five Indian Navy Ship sorties, our people were moved from Port Sudan to safety in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. From Jeddah, Air Force and commercial flights brought people home. Another 86 nationals were evacuated through the countries bordering Sudan.
“Narendra Modi hai toh kuch bhee mumkin hai (When PM Modi is there, anything is possible). I am grateful for his leadership,” said one of the evacuees. It was India’s diplomatic clout that helped muster support from the Government in Saudi Arabia, for facilitating this process.
Governments of Chad, Egypt, France, OPERATION KAVERI India’s daredevil rescue mission in war-torn Sudan South Sudan, UAE, UK, USA and UN also lent a helping hand.
The successful evacuation of Indians from South Sudan under Operation Kaveri was widely praised by the international community. The Government has also provided financial assistance to the evacuated Indians to help them restart their lives.
To facilitate the passengers smoothly, New Delhi set up separate control rooms in Jeddah and Port Sudan, while the Indian Embassy in Khartoum remained in close contact with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). Although ‘Operation Kaveri’ started nine days after the conflict flared up in Sudan, the preparations and actions of Indian Embassy staff which started on the very next day of the conflict, made it successful. Evacuation from Sudan was not an easy job and there were many challenges.
Within 24 hours of the conflict breaking out on April 15, the Indian Embassy started working day and night. It mapped the locations of the Indians with a Google spreadsheet tee, with their names, contact numbers and other details of stranded Indians across the country.
Within no time, the link to this spreadsheet was shared on social media. Indians responded and within the next 72 hours, more than 3,000 names were registered.
Embassy War room
Communication was established with them and a War Room was prepared at the Indian Embassy in Khartoum which was managed 24×7.
Since the War Room was prepared well in advance, once the ‘Operation Kaveri’ was announced, the execution was prompt. The Indian Embassy organised buses from local transporters.
Every bus was assigned tech-savvy team leaders who were told to scan the entire route with photographs and Google locations and map the possible conflict zones, places where fuel, food, medicines and water can be available and places where the team can take shelter in case of a contingency. All these were relayed to the War Room in real-time scenario. The Indian Embassy staff including the Ambassador himself worked day and night till each and every Indian was evacuated from the war-torn country.
