200 more Indians from the strife-torn Iraq reached home in the early hours of Sunday, following Saturday's evacuation of 183 Indian nationals, including 46 female nurses.
The special chartered flight of Iraq Airways from Najaf, carrying Indian passengers, touched down in New Delhi at around 04.30 hours in the morning on Sunday, according to a PTI report.
Union Ministry of External Affairs had chartered the plane. Over the next two days - Monday and Tuesday - special flights, including the Indian government-owned Air India, are expected to airlift about 600 more passengers from Iraq.
The 200 passengers landed in New Delhi from Iraq on Sunday, a day after 183 people, including 46 Indian nurses - most of them from Kerala - held captive by ISIS militants in a Tikrit city hospital, reached home safely.
Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who received the 46 Indian nurses in Thiruvananthapuram, thanked the Union government for its timely efforts in bringing the stranded Indians from Iraq. The nurses were trapped in the Tikrit hospital for several days, after the ISIS militants held the city.
However, proper information on the 39 Indian construction workers, who were abducted by Sunni militants in Mosul on 8 June, is yet to be ascertained. One among the abducted workers had escaped from the militants' captivity.
The Indians were working on construction projects near Mosul. Indian mission officials in Baghdad have stepped up efforts to trace the 39 missing construction workers. There are about 120 Indian construction workers in Mosul.
In addition to the Indian nationals, there were workers from the Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal working in the strife-affected areas of Iraq.
So far, the Indian External Affairs Ministry has not come in with direct telephone contact with the 39 abducted construction workers, according to reports. Relatives of the kidnapped have been urging the government to take all efforts to trace and release their kin from the militants.
Iraq has been in turmoil after an al-Qaeda offshoot, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), made advances in recent weeks in the north and north-central portions of the country, including the seizure of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city.
Mosul was the first to fall in the swift Sunni militants' offensive. Then Tikrit came under their seizure. The militants seized the city and freed hundreds of prisoners. Other cities like Baquba, Baiji, Kirkuk have also been hit in the clashes between ISIS and Iraq State forces.
