Indian Plane Repatriates 58 Citizens from Iran amid Coronavirus Outbreak
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A military transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) brought back 58 Indians from Iran on Tuesday amid the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus in the country, an official said.
"The IAF aircraft has landed. Mission completed. On to the next," Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar tweeted, India Today reported.
The aircraft, a C-17 Globemaster, was sent to Tehran on Monday evening. About 2,000 Indians are living in Iran.
In an earlier tweet, the minister wrote, "First batch of 58 Indian pilgrims being brought back from Iran. IAF C-17 taken off from Tehran and expected to land soon in Hindon."
"Thanks to the efforts of our Embassy @India_in_Iran and Indian medical team there, operating under challenging conditions. Thank you @IAF_MCC. Appreciate cooperation of Iranian authorities. We are working on the return of other Indians stranded there," Jaishankar added.
The aircraft landed at Hindon airbase in Ghaziabad, from where the passengers were taken to a medical facility.
Iran recently asked the New Delhi government to send a plane and take all its nationals back to India amid the outbreak of the deadly virus. New Delhi first turned down Iran’s request and set conditions, calling on Iran to send the Indian citizens back with its own plane.
To show its brotherly ties with New Delhi, Tehran accepted the conditions but the Indian government this time, apparently due to its lack of options to diagnose the novel coronavirus, asked Iran to do comprehensive coronavirus tests on the nationals and that is while such high-level tests are time-consuming.
Finally, the Indian government decided to repatriate them with its own plane after around 300 swab samples of the citizens, who were suspected of having coronavirus infection, was brought in a ferry flight from Tehran.
The coronavirus — named COVID-19 — first emerged in China late last year and is now spreading in Europe, the US, and across the Middle East, sparking fears of a global pandemic.
Since December 2019, over 108,000 people have been infected in several countries, with some 3,800 deaths, mostly in China.
Iran has been the worst-hit country in the Middle East, with a total of 237 deaths and 7,161 infection cases.