External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj & General VK Singh discuss all eventualities of evacuation from Yemen.
India will evacuate 400 nationals by ship today from the port city of Aden in Yemen, after four nights of Saudi-led air strikes against Iranian-backed forces whose advances forced the President to flee.
The evacuees will be moved from Aden to the town of Djibout, from where they will be flown home, the government said today. Minister of State for External Affairs, General VK Singh, will leave for Djibouti tomorrow to supervise the rescue efforts.
Two Air India planes have been flown from Delhi to Muscat, Oman, but the government is still awaiting clearance to fly onto the Yemeni capital Sanaa, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.
On Sunday, India airlifted 80 nationals from Sanaa to Djibouti, on the opposite shore of the Gulf of Aden. An estimated 2,500-3,000 nationals are believed to be living in or near the capital.
"More than 500 are on a list of ready to fly," said Dilbagh Singh, a counsellor at the Indian embassy in Sanaa who was organising the evacuation effort. "They are at their homes but can be at the airport within an hour."
An Indian navy patrol vessel involved in anti-piracy operations is heading for the port of Aden, where a smaller Indian community is based. The patrol vessel has capacity to evacuate 150-200 people, Foreign Ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said. A larger vessel with the capacity for 1,500 people would arrive in around five days.
Mr Akbaruddin dismissed criticism that Delhi had been slow to react to the deteriorating security situation in Yemen, saying it had issued three advisories urging Indian nationals to leave the country - the first on January 21.