Amid the fluid and volatile situation in the conflict-stricken Gulf state, India has managed to evacuate 17 more Indians trapped in the zone of conflict in northern Iraq, which has been overrun by Sunni militants.
“We have, with the help of local authorities, been able to evacuate 17 more of our nationals from the zone of conflict. They are now in Baghdad,” Syed Akbaruddin, the spokesperson of India’s external affairs ministry, said in Delhi June 24.
Till this date, 34 Indians have been brought to safety from Iraq, home to around 10,000 Indians. The spokesperson said that there were about 120 Indians in the conflict zone, of whom 16 were evacuated last week.
Forty Indians were kidnapped in the Iraqi city of Mosul, but one of had escaped and also had been evacuated. The spokesperson said that the remaining 39 in captivity in Iraq’s second largest city Mosul have not been “hurt or harmed in any way.”
In what is clearly the first overseas challenge facing the month-old Modi government, India is using all possible channels to secure the release of Indian hostages.
India also issued a second travel advisory June 24, which has asked Indian nationals in the conflict-prone zone to remain indoors, while others have been advised to leave the country on a voluntary basis by commercial means if it is safe to do so.
Amid the grim security situation, the US has promised intense and sustained” support to Iraq, with US Secretary of State John Kerry describing the festering Iraqi crisis “a moment of decision for Iraq’s leaders and … a moment of great urgency.”
Latest reports indicate that the brutal jihadist group, the ISIS, has occupied an 800-km stretch of the border between Iraq and Syria, and is on verge of seizing the country’s most strategic areas. “The very future of Iraq depends on choices that will be made in the next days and weeks. Not next week, not next month, but now,” said Kerry.
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