New Delhi:
46 Indian nurses held captive in war-torn Iraq have been freed by the Sunni militant group ISIS, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said today. They have been taken by bus to Erbil from where they will take a flight to India.
Here are the latest developments in the story:
"All Indian nurses are safe and are on their way home," the Kerala Chief Minister said. He said they were expected to return to India tomorrow morning.
An Air India Boeing 777 aircraft will leave Delhi at 6 this evening for Erbil with representatives of the Central and Kerala governments on board to escort the nurses back. Erbil is the capital of the Kurd autonomous region and has held a defensive line on its borders against Islamic State militants.
The aircraft will fly the nurses back from Erbil to Kochi. All but one is from Kerala. The lone nurse from Tamil Nadu will be helped back home by the Kerala government.
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 insurgents group ISIS or the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
The nurses were yesterday forced to board two buses and taken to Mosul. They were reportedly kept at a hospital there.
On Thursday, the government said the nurses agreed to move for their own safety but against their "free will."
Bringing out Indians from Iraq is the first major foreign policy challenge for the new government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Two weeks ago, 39 Indian construction workers were kidnapped from Mosul. The government said they had been seen and they were "safe and unharmed."
Islamic State insurgents and other Sunni Muslim militant groups seized towns and cities across Syria and Iraq in a lightning advance last month and declared a ''caliphate" on the first day of Ramzan.
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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