Two Vande Bharat flights from Saudi departs with 565 Indians
Jun 13, 2020
Riyadh [Saudi Arabia], June 14 : Two special flights under Vande Bharat Mission departed from Saudi Arabia with 565 stranded Indians on Saturday for Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode.
"Air India flight AI 1946 from Dammam to Kozhikode departed today from King Fahd Intl Airport Dammam with 148 passengers (incl 2 infants) onboard," Indian embassy in Saudi Arabia tweeted.
"Air India flight AI 1940 from Riyadh to Trivandrum departed today from King Khalid Intl Airport Riyadh with 417 passengers (incl 11 infants) onboard," the embassy tweeted in another tweet.
'Vande Bharat' mission is a Government of India's initiative to bring home Indian nationals stranded in various parts of the world due to restrictions over air travel to contain COVID-19 spread.
A total of 1,65,375 people have returned, including 29,034 migrant workers under Vande Bharat Mission as of Thursday, said Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava.
The exercise began on May 7 and its second phase started on May 16.
The third phase of the exercise began on June 11 and will continue till June 30.
