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Nearly a third of 18,000 Indians, stuck in strife-torn Libya, would have been evacuated by Tuesday through air and sea.
While two special Air India flights - AI 800 (Airbus 330) and AI 171 (Boeing 744) are likely to ferry back around 600 passengers from Tripoli, up to 3000 Indian nationals, including 400 who have travelled across from Al Kufrah by road, will be evacuated by Scotia Prince and La Superba, the chartered passengers ships, Ministry of External Affairs said.
It said the Scotia Prince, which will pick up the evacuees, will return to Alexandria on March 2. "Two Air India flights with evacuees flying into Delhi frm (from) Tripoli today," Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao tweeted. "All 68 Indian nationals who had crossed over to Salloum (Egypt) reached Mumbai by GF-056 this morning... Another 82 Indians crossed over to Salloum late last evening. They are also being taken to Cairo and expected to leave by Gulf Air flight (GF-056) via Bahrain on Tuesday, so as to reach Mumbai on Wednesday 2nd March at 0505 hours," the ministry said.
A help desk at Mumbai airport has been set up by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) in coordination with the Maharashtra government and other state governments, to render all assistance to the passengers including for further travel to their hometowns.
Noting that the land route to Ras Jedir (Tunisia) was being put to good use by our nationals, the MEA said according to latest information, a total of 378 individuals have already crossed over from Libya and another 100 persons are likely to similarly cross over by end of the day.
Indian officials are proceeding to Sicily (Italy) to speed up arrangements for passenger ship La Superba's maiden journey to Benghazi (Libya). Meanwhile, an air bridge is also proposed to be set up between Malta and India to bring our nationals home.