Government of India has evacuated 4,640 Indians whereas the number of Indians registered with the Indian mission in Yemen is 4,100. GoI has evacuated 960 foreigners belonging to 41 different countries. It has invited the appreciation of the international community.
Raveendranath CH from Kochi
Now, most of the Indians are back home from the strife and war-ridden Yemen. All eyes are on the rehabilitation and re-employment of the evacuees. Organiser spoke to Raveendranath CH, who came back home less than a week before. Raveendranath was employed by the National Cements Company (NCC), a UAE based cement manufacturing group. It was after working in Zambia for an year that Raveendranath accepted the job offer of NCC. He could hardly work for 3 months in the South Yemen factory of NCC before the war started. Immediately his employers moved into quick action. They put all their employees in a hotel which was somewhat free from the commotions. They could make calls to their dear and nears.
Raveendranath is in all praise when he talks about the footsteps Government of India (GoI) took to evacuate our people from the place of bomb blasts and gun shots. They had done enough to persuade the employers and the Yemen Government to move Indians to Djibouti for their safe flight to India. During the earlier days of wars, the evacuees were air-lifted from South Yemen city of Sanaa to Djibouti. But, when the bomb blasts became the order of the day, authorities started to take the evacuees by sea from Al Udaayi to Djibouti. That voyage takes about 26 hours. Indian Naval ships took that mission. Raveendranath is one of the several beneficiaries of it. Even though Raveendranath flew to Kochi, he further flew to Pune to accompany his colleagues of other states. It was as per the instructions he had received from his employers. From Pune he came back home by train.
He was so happy about the way Gen VK Singh had
spoken to them at Djibouti. He said that GoI took all
humanly possible efforts to save the countrymen from the war-ridden area.
Rajani Thomas from Kottayam Organiser spoke to another Yemen returnee Rajani Thomas of Panachikkaat, Kottayam. It was after serving in Saudi Arabia for two years and then one year in Kerala that Rajani, a professional nurse, went to Yemen to try her family’s luck. Since the war started their night duty was merged with the afternoon duty; the idea was to avoid the staff movement in the night. Rajani says, the hospital was never under attack. But, they could see the shooting going on. Sometimes debris of shells were seen in the hospital courtyard. Even though the doctors were all of Yemenese origin, staff nurses belonged to Russia, Philippines and India. Perhaps the presence of these foreign staff might have prevented the enemy soldiers from attacking the hospital, Rajani thinks. |
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