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Relieved Indians are arriving at airports across the country on the first flights to take home stranded overseas, and others are on their way on naval warships, in an extensive repatriation effort labeled Vande Mataram (long life to the homeland) mission.
Photos from inside a plane landing at Chennai airport showed the flight crew, who was previously screened by Covid-19, wearing protective suits and smiling behind masks and visors.
Thousands of Indians have been trapped abroad since India banned all incoming flights in late March as part of a strict blockade, which has been extended three times.
Students in the United Kingdom and the United States ran out of money for food, and Gulf workers who had lost their jobs had no money to survive. Indians who were abroad for medical diagnosis or treatment found themselves trapped there for much longer than planned, without enough money to continue paying bills.
Every day for a week, eight or nine Air India-operated flights will take their passengers home from 12 countries, primarily from the Gulf, but also from the US. USA, UK, Russia, Bangladesh, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
Each flight will carry 200-250 passengers, to allow physical distance. Anyone showing symptoms during the flight will be confined to a separate area.
Anshul Sheoran, the pilot of a flight that landed in Kochi, Kerala, from Abu Dhabi, told the media that the doctors had trained him and the crew on the protocols to follow. “They taught us the correct ways to put on and take off PPE suits. They told us about the gaps and the wrong practices. Wearing the suits meant we couldn’t use the bathroom or eat during the flight, “said Sheoran.
Three of India’s naval warships have been deployed for the rescue operation. A naval official said a ship was on its way from Male, the capital of the Maldives, with almost 700 Indians.
The government said those who were brought home first had been selected based on how urgent their need to return was, prioritizing those facing deportation, pregnant women, the elderly, struggling students with no income, and those with medical emergencies. .
The number of Indians who will be repatriated in the coming weeks can reach 200,000.
The smiling faces of those returning home on planes stood in stark contrast to the migrant workers who had been enduring their own “internal exile” in Indian cities during the shutdown.
Without jobs or income, they have also been desperate to return to their villages and families, but have received little or no government aid. So far, only a few thousand have been able to return home on special trains.
Hundreds of thousands are still waiting in the shelters. Many have stopped waiting for the government to provide them with transportation and are walking home. They are covering distances of hundreds of miles while transporting young children and their meager belongings in 40C (104F) summer temperatures.
On Friday, a freight train ran over 16 workers who were walking more than 500 miles to their homes in Madhya Pradesh and stopped to rest on the train tracks.
