About 4,500 Indians register for evacuation from Maldives

About 4,500 Indian nationals have registered for evacuation from Maldives.

Indian High Commissioner to Maldives, Sunjay Sudhir, revealed this during an interview on RaajjeTV’s Covid-19 coverage on Friday night following the evacuation of 698 Indians via INS Jalashwa.

He said they estimate about 27,000 Indian expatriate workers to be residing in the Maldives.

Further, the high commissioner said that about 4,500 “have asked [us] to evacuate them and a vast majority of this is from the resort sector because all the resorts are shutdown” and added that they want to return home until the resorts reopen.

The government of India has launched its biggest ever repatriation exercise amid the coronavirus pandemic, to evacuate stranded Indians from various parts of the world. The government is sorting the candidates according to a list of the most “compelling reasons” for evacuation. The list gives priority to those facing deportation, those who have lost jobs, short-term visa holders, those who are ill or pregnant, the elderly, those who have had a death in the family, and tourists and students.

While 698 Indians set sail from Maldives to Cochin at around 10:20pm tonight, the high commissioner highlighted that this process went “very smoothly” and added that there are plans to evacuate more Indian nationals from the archipelago nation.