Yemen crisis: Rescued Indians recount nightmare, hundreds of nurses still trapped

Mangalore Today News Network

Mumbai, April 4, 2015: They had lost all hopes of returning home, but on Thursday 190 Indian nationals were overjoyed when they reached Mumbai from Aden in Yemen. Stepping out of the huge C-17 Globemaster aircraft of the Indian Air Force, these Indians shared their difficult experiences with Mail Today.

Shaktisadan, who originally hails from Chennai, said that the strife in Yemen had totally disrupted their contacts with the rest of the world. "We had shut ourselves in our houses in Aden. We had lost all contacts with the outside world. I was thinking of my family back in India all the time," he said. "Life had become miserable in Aden. I never thought that I will be back in India. It’s like coming out from the jaws of death," he added.

Yowan Mangesh, who was working as a laboratory technician at a hospital in Aden, narrated a similar tale. "We could not sleep for over a week. We had lost all contacts with the outside world and we had very little food," Mangesh said.

A resident of Hooghly in West Bengal, S.K. Kareem Mondol said that through the days all that he heard were sounds of gunshots and shelling. "The last 10 days in Aden was terrible for all of us. I had landed there on February 23 to work in a jewellery company. I was surprised to see that even children in Aden were wielding guns," Mondol said.

He said that even though many Indians have been rescued from Aden, hundreds of nurses from Kerala are still stranded there. "One of my friends, who worked as a nurse there, asked me how I managed to get out of Aden, which is a major flashpoint in the ongoing battle. She is still stranded there," Mondol added. He said that it is very difficult for the nurses to move out because their bosses are withholding the passports. Moreover, Akema, a permission needed for exiting Yemen, was not being granted to these nurses. "The Indian government must immediately do something to get these nurses out of that country," he added.

However, Mondol had a few good words for the Yemeni people. "They respect the Indians. They were generous and they had warned us about the deteriorating situation in that country," Mondol said. Besides Mumbai, another group of Indians landed in Kochi from Yemen. The country in Arab peninsula is witnessing a major battle between the Houthi rebels and Saudi Arabia-backed fighters allied with exiled president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.


Courtesy: Indiatoday