<p>Forty-six Indian women nurses held by Sunni insurgents in Iraq are being freed and will be flown to India soon, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy announced Friday.<br /><br /></p>.<p>"The nurses are being taken to the Erbil airport," Chandy told IANS. "They are set to return to India."<br /><br />Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan, is located about 60 km from Mosul, the insurgent stronghold which the nurses reached Thursday night after being forced out of their hospital in Tikrit.<br /><br />The chief minister said over telephone from New Delhi where he is camping that the latest development took place due to the efforts of the Kerala and the central governments.<br /><br />Chandy expressed confidence about the safe return of the nurses after meeting External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj earlier in the morning.<br /><br />"I am quite confident that we can bring back our nurses from Iraq," he told reporters earlier. <br /><br />"A high-level crisis management group under the leadership of Sushma Swaraj has been formed. They will be doing everything to see that the nurses are brought back safely," he said.<br /><br />Chandy requested the media not to go overboard while reporting the crisis involving the nurses, all of them from Kerala.<br /><br />"I cannot divulge all the details," he added.<br /><br />The 46 nurses were put in a bus from Tikrit Thursday afternoon in the company of armed militants and driven to Mosul, where they reached late at night.<br /><br />On Friday morning, they were given food and allowed to speak over the telephone to their families in Kerala.<br /></p>
<p>Forty-six Indian women nurses held by Sunni insurgents in Iraq are being freed and will be flown to India soon, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy announced Friday.<br /><br /></p>.<p>"The nurses are being taken to the Erbil airport," Chandy told IANS. "They are set to return to India."<br /><br />Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan, is located about 60 km from Mosul, the insurgent stronghold which the nurses reached Thursday night after being forced out of their hospital in Tikrit.<br /><br />The chief minister said over telephone from New Delhi where he is camping that the latest development took place due to the efforts of the Kerala and the central governments.<br /><br />Chandy expressed confidence about the safe return of the nurses after meeting External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj earlier in the morning.<br /><br />"I am quite confident that we can bring back our nurses from Iraq," he told reporters earlier. <br /><br />"A high-level crisis management group under the leadership of Sushma Swaraj has been formed. They will be doing everything to see that the nurses are brought back safely," he said.<br /><br />Chandy requested the media not to go overboard while reporting the crisis involving the nurses, all of them from Kerala.<br /><br />"I cannot divulge all the details," he added.<br /><br />The 46 nurses were put in a bus from Tikrit Thursday afternoon in the company of armed militants and driven to Mosul, where they reached late at night.<br /><br />On Friday morning, they were given food and allowed to speak over the telephone to their families in Kerala.<br /></p>