How India brought over 5,000 evacuees back from war-torn Yemen

The evacuation mission mounted by the government helped more than 5,000 Indians leave war-torn Yemen. The author goes behind the scenes to find out how this was achieved

“General sahab, aap march kijiye (General, please march),” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, looking at former army chief V K Singh. The senior ministers, intelligence officials and three service chiefs attending the meeting hurriedly convened by Modi on March 30 nodded their assent. The situation in Yemen was dire after a coalition of countries led by Saudi Arabia had launched an offensive three days earlier against the anti-government Zaidi Shia rebels known as the Houthis.

The contours of what was to become Operation Rahaat, a massive evacuation exercise to bring back hundreds of Indians from Yemen, were discussed at the meeting and Singh, minister of state in the external affairs ministry, was asked to immediately embark for the troubled country at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. He was to oversee the withdrawal of Indians from Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, and the cities of Aden, Ash Shihr, Al Mukalla and Al Hudaydah.

Singh took the only available flight on the evening of March 31 and landed in Djibouti in Africa, from where Sana’a is an hour’s flight across the Gulf of Aden. By then, the government had pulled out two merchant ships, MV Kavaratti and MV Corals, from their regular services and directed them to leave for Djibouti, which was to become Ground Zero for the Indian rescue operations over two weeks.

On the night of March 30, Indian Navy’s INS Tarkash, a stealth frigate, and INS Mumbai, a destroyer, also left for Djibouti. INS Sumitra, which was already on anti-piracy patrolling in the Gulf of Aden, reached the Yemeni port of Aden on the night of March 31.

The control rooms of the three branches of the armed forces, external affairs ministry and Air India in New Delhi were connected with one another and with the Indian missions concerned on a real-time basis. A makeshift control room was set up at the Kempinski Hotel in Djibouti. An Indian Navy satellite was repositioned to provide minute-to-minute data on the ground situation. A navy personnel later said the satellite streaming was so flawless that those monitoring the control room could actually count the number of people moving around in Yemen, a scene straight out of a Hollywood movie.

Singh, with his years of army training, got the operation going smoothly. He held the first briefing at the Kempinski control room at 9.30 am on April 1, after which he went to meet the first tranche of 349 Indians who had arrived at Djibouti on board INS Sumitra from Aden. “After disembarking, many of them started chanting ‘Bharat mata ki jai, Indian Navy ki jai’,” recounts an official who was present at the scene. The rescued citizens rested in a commodious marriage hall at the hotel till the Indian Air Force and Air India aircraft arrived.

The navy official says the rescue of the first 349 passengers was one of the toughest challenges he had faced ever. The warring Yemeni factions were engaged in a gun battle at Aden and the immigration officers had abandoned the port.

This forced Indian naval troops to first secure the port before INS Sumitra could lower its boats to ferry the stranded Indians. The task was tough also because the Saudis, who had control over the Yemeni airspace, had refused the Indian Air Force permission to land its airplanes in Sana'a.

It was Air India that had to take up the task of bridging Sana’a and Djibouti. “The Saudis gave us permission to fly for only two-and-a-half hours in a day,” Singh says. “The situation in Sana’a was so chaotic that it was difficult to land two planes, segregate passengers for Kochi and Mumbai, check their papers, get them on board and fly them back within the stipulated 150 minutes.” A big problem was handling people who wanted to return home, but didn’t have relevant documents or exit visas and permission from the employers. “It was costly, but the government had to arrange emergency exit documents for them,” says Singh.

Singh flew five times to Sana’a and even stayed a night there to get a first-hand experience, all the while remaining in constant touch with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. On his last flight to Sana’a, where around 450 Indians and 120 foreign nationals awaited to be extricated, Singh and his staff were told to turn back to Djibouti since the coalition fighter planes were bombing areas close to the airport. It was a tight situation -- an Indian minister was on a flight that was allegedly encroaching into the airspace controlled by the Saudis.

An official recalls the event: “As the plane was approaching the Sana’a airport, we got the shock of our life with the news that fighter planes were carrying out bombings and the pilot of our aircraft had been asked to return to Djibouti immediately. The plane was diverted, but all of us, though very nervous, were anxious to reach Yemen. Amid all this, Singh stood up and said that there was no question of going back. He calmly remarked that there must be some funny military exercises going on and that we had to land at Sana’a to evacuate the last group of Indians and nationals of other countries waiting there.

Singh then approached the cockpit and spoke to the pilots and told them what to convey to the Air Traffic Control at Sana’a. Having taken an arc back to Djibouti after the initial order, the aircraft did an about turn and again headed towards the Yemeni capital. “Upon landing, we came to know that the area near the airport had been bombed not long before our plane touched down,” says Singh.

Till April 9, Indian Navy, Indian Air Force, and Air India jointly evacuated 4,640 Indian citizens and around 960 foreign nationals from 41 countries from the strife-torn country. They were brought in the five vessels assembled by the government to Djibouti from where they were flown to India on Air India planes and Indian Air Force C-17 Globemasters.

INS Tarkash and INS Mumbai have since returned to India, and the Indian embassy in Sana’a is now closed. INS Sumitra has returned to its patrolling duty in the Gulf of Aden.

Singh attributes the success of Operation Rahaat -- the second-largest undertaken by the government of India after Operation Safe Homecoming in Libya in 2011 when 15,000 Indians were evacuated -- to team work. “It was not only the government officers who worked hard to help the stranded people, but also the local Bohra community and the Indian associations there,” he says.