Iranian airline offers to repatriate all stranded Indians due to COVID-19 in letter to PM

Amidst the Coronavirus outbreak and India's efforts to repatriate its nationals from severely-affected countries, Iran-based airliner Mahan Air on Sunday offered to bring all Indians stranded in Iran back to their homeland without "any commercial interest as a humanitarian initiative". In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the airline's Managing Director Hamid Arabnejad said around 7,000 Indians have been stranded across various locations in Iran whom he wished to repatriate.

"In this regard, I, on behalf of Mahan Air, hereby, offer to safely repatriate all India nationals stranded in Iran back to their country without any commercial interest as a humanitarian initiative for our Indian brethren," Arabnejad said in the letter dated March 15. He added that there are many stranded Indians who are either students or pilgrims and do not have sufficient means to make alternative arrangements.

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"Our airline will deploy appropriate aircraft to ferry the stranded Indians and land at suitable designated international airports in India," Mahan Air assured in the letter further urging the government of India to grant the required permissions. The letter to PM Modi stated that India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has suspended operations of Iranian carriers to India due to health and safety reasons and the airline duly abides by the norms but noted that the suspension of operations has Indians stranded in Iran.

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Third batch of Indians evacuated

Mahan Air on Sunday flew as many as 234 Indians who were among the people stranded in Iran to India, informed External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. The flight carrying the Indians onboard landed in Mumbai. Among the 234 people, 131 of them are students and the rest are pilgrims. In the wee hours of Sunday, Jaishankar took to Twitter to thank the Iranian authorities for facilitating the evacuations of stranded Indians.

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Worst-hit in the Middle East

Iran is among the worst affected country from the Coronavirus with nearly 12,700 cases and 611 deaths so far. In the past few days, India has carried out several evacuations of Indians nationals across the world. The first batch consisting of 58 nationals was brought back in a C17 military transport aircraft on Tuesday followed by another evacuation of 44 individuals on Friday.

COVID-19 has been declared a pandemic by the WHO and a large number of Indian stranded in Corona-affected countries like Italy, Iran are being evacuated by the Government.

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(AP Photo)