News Desk: Indian Navy on May 5 launched the ‘Operation Samudra Setu’ as a part of a national effort to repatriate Indian citizens from overseas during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.Indian Naval Ships ‘Jalashwa’ and ‘Magar’ were the Indian Naval Ships that were sent to the port of Malè, Republic of Maldives on May 8 to start the evacuation process as a part of Phase-1.
This unique operation of the Indian Navy has gained a lot of momentum since then as the Indian Navy till Wednesday was successful in bringing back 3,992 citizens from various countries stranded due to the Covid pandemic.
Indian Naval ships Jalashwa and Airavat, Shardul and Magar played a major part in this operation which lasted over 55 days and involved traversing more then 23,000 kilometres by sea.
However, the operation had its challenges. The biggest challenge for the Navy was to avoid any incident of outbreak of infection onboard the ships during the evacuation operation.
“Rigorous measures were planned and medical/safety protocols unique to the operating environment of ships were implemented. These were strictly followed onboard the ships undertaking Op Samudra Setu resulting in the safe return of 3,992 of our citizens to their homeland,” Commander Vivek Madhwal said.
TheIndian Navy had previously undertaken similar evacuation operations as part of Operation Sukoon in 2006 in Beirut and Operation Rahat in 2015 Yemen.