3rd round of evacuation from China set to be held this week

Beijing: India will carry out the third round of evacuation to pull out its remaining nationals from Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the epicentre of the ongoing

Beijing: India will carry out the third round of evacuation to pull out its remaining nationals from Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the epicentre of the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, later this week.

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The Indian embassy in Beijing on Monday reached out to the remaining Indians in Wuhan and Hubei province, informing them about the evacuation plan and asking them to register for it.

The remaining stranded Indians will be evacuated when a special Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft, which will be carrying medical supplies for the Hubei government to fight the outbreak, flies them back towards the end of the week.

The Indian ambassador to China, Vikram Misri, has also expressed New Delhi’s willingness to evacuate nationals from other south Asian countries stranded in Wuhan subject to the availability of space in the special IAF aircraft.

Earlier in February, India evacuated 647 Indians, along with and seven Maldivians, from Wuhan in two Air India flights.

Over 100 Indians are still living in and around Wuhan and at least 10 among them could not leave Wuhan in the two initial evacuations after showing symptoms of fever.

As many as 89 Indians had registered for the evacuation until early Monday evening. Upon reaching New Delhi, they will be compulsorily quarantined for two weeks.

External affairs minister S Jaishankar recently told Parliament that around 80 Indian students still remain holed up in Wuhan.

“The Indian government will be sending a consignment of medical supplies on board a relief flight to Wuhan later this week to aid and assist China in its efforts against the COVID-19 epidemic,” the embassy said in a message, which was circulated among the remaining 110 Indians through social media.

“On its return, the flight will have limited capacity to take on board Indian nationals wishing to return home from Wuhan/Hubei province and they are already in touch with the embassy for the past two weeks,” the message said.

“Indian nationals from Wuhan/Hubei, who intend to avail this flight for India and have not yet contacted the embassy, have been urged to call the mission’s hotlines or send e-mail before 19:00 hours on Monday,” the message added.

The evacuated Indians will have to go through a mandatory 14-day quarantine to screen them for the deadly pathogen.

So far, several countries have pulled out their nationals from Wuhan. On Sunday, Nepal evacuated 175 of its nationals from the sprawling Chinese commercial centre. The US, Japan, South Korea, Canada, New Zealand and Australia are among the other countries that have evacuated their nationals from Wuhan and Hubei province.

Pakistan remains a notable exception, despite the fact that hundreds of its students are still stranded in Wuhan.

An NPR report quoted Pakistani students as saying that they will not be evacuated because of “political reasons” – Beijing and Islamabad are very close allies and call themselves “iron brothers”.

Pakistani students feel that Islamabad doesn’t want to embarrass China by evacuating its nationals from Wuhan.

India had offered to evacuate citizens from other South Asian countries in the first two flights, but only Maldives had taken up the offer.

Indian ambassador Misri repeated the offer this time. “Subject to capacity limitations and space availability on the incoming aircraft, India is also willing to facilitate nationals from all our neighbours boarding it on its return journey to New Delhi,” Misri said in a social media post.