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Indian nurses in Iraq freed, to be back home today

46 nurses, 70 others on board spl plane
Last Updated 04 July 2014, 21:28 IST

The 46 Indian nurses held captive in Iraq by militants are now free and expected to return to Kerala on Saturday, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has confirmed.

“Indian nurses who were moved against their will on Thursday are free. The nurses will move to Erbil on Friday night. An Air India plane (Boeing 777) has taken off from Delhi to bring them back,” MEA spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said here on Friday.

The plane is scheduled to leave Erbil late night on Friday and land in Kochi on Saturday morning. Besides the nurses, the aircraft will bring home 70 other Indians.

“The nurses are all safe, unharmed and unhurt. They have gone through a traumatic experience,” Akbaruddin said. He refused to disclose the details of the operation citing that work was on to bring back the 39 construction workers who continue to be in militants’ captivity. “They are in captivity. We are aware of the captors and engaged on the ground. Contacts are being made at the diplomatic and the ground level to free them,” he said.

Akbaruddin also refused to identify the militants involved in two cases — those who asked the nurses to move out of Tikrit in central Iraq and the abductors of the construction workers in Mosul in northern Iraq. Both Mosul and Tikrit are said to be under the control of Sunni militants, suspected to be members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an offshoot of al-Qaeda. Earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj spoke to her counterparts in the Gulf nations to secure a safe passage for the nurses.

Akbaruddin underscored the significance of “ground-level contact” and role of “national assets”, triggering speculations about the role of intelligence officials and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in the operation.

“On the ground, conventional tools of diplomacy were not available as it was a conflict zone. I won't share the details of who were involved in the negotiation. How doors were knocked on and how one of them opened is a story for another day,” Akbaruddin said.

Asked about the roles played by other countries, he said, “India has friends not only inside Iraq but outside, too.”

An MEA team has been stationed in Erbil, which is outside the conflict zone, to ensure better coordination with Kurdistan authorities and to receive the nurses.

S K Sinha, joint secretary in the ministry, two Kerala government representatives, Resident Commissioner in Delhi Gyanesh Kumar and Additional Resident Commissioner Rachana Shah will accompany the nurses in the flight.

Out of 10,000 Indians in the conflict-ridden Iraq, almost 2,000 have indicated their willingness to return to India.

Initially, the nurses made a “judgement call” and decided to stay back.

When the situation deteriorated, some of them changed their minds but by then the land route was closed, the spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs said.

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(Published 04 July 2014, 21:28 IST)

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