India evacuates fresh batch of 290 Indians, 1 Sri Lankan from Iran

New Delhi: India on Monday evacuated 290 Indian nationals and one Sri Lankan citizen from Iran amid an escalation in hostilities between the Persian Gulf nation and Israel following the US bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites.

With the fresh batch of evacuees, India has brought back 2003 Indians from Iran so far.

Two-hundred-ninety Indian nationals and one Sri Lankan were evacuated from Mashhad on a special flight that arrived in New Delhi at 1915 hours on Monday, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a social media post.

With this, 2003 Indian nationals have been brought back safely from Iran so far, he added.

A total of 161 Indians are also arriving by a special flight in New Delhi from Amman after they were moved to the capital city of Jordan from Israel as part of New Delhi's evacuation mission Operation Sindhu.

The Indian nationals are expected to reach the national capital at around midnight tonight, people familiar with the matter said.

India launched Operation Sindhu last week to bring back Indians from Iran and Israel in view of increasing hostilities between the two nations.

Israel and Iran have fired hundreds of missiles and drones at each other's cities and military and strategic facilities since the hostilities began over a week back.

The tensions escalated significantly following the US bombing of three major Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday morning.

India has evacuated its nationals on chartered flights operated from the Iranian city of Mashhad, the Armenian capital of Yerevan and the Turkmenistan capital of Ashgabat since Wednesday.

Iran lifted airspace restrictions on Friday to facilitate three chartered flights from Mashhad.

The first flight landed in New Delhi late on Friday with 290 Indians, and the second one landed in the national capital on Saturday afternoon with 310 Indians.

Another flight arrived from the Armenian capital city of Yerevan on Thursday. A special evacuation flight from Ashgabat landed in New Delhi early on Saturday morning.