India to evacuate citizens from Ukraine via Hungary, Romania

With Ukraine airspace closed amid the Russian invasion, India issued fresh advisory to stranded citizens informing people that the government is working on evacuation routes from Kyiv’s land borders with Hungary and Romania.

“Govt of India and Embassy of India working to establish evacuation routes from Romania and Hungary. At present, teams are getting in place at CHOP-ZAHONY Hungarian border near Uzhhorod, PORUBNE-SIRET Romanian Border near Chernivtsi,” the Indian Embassy in Hungary’s Budapest said in a statement. 

The embassy has advised people to carry a passport, vaccination certificate, and cash, preferably US dollars.

The Indian embassy has advised Indian nationals living closest to the border checkpoints to depart first in an organised manner in coordination with teams from MEA. The government has asked Indian ambassadors in countries neighbouring Ukraine such as Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary to send teams from their missions to border areas with Ukraine to facilitate the exit of Indians so that they can be evacuated to India.

India has mounted a major initiative to evacuate its citizens from Ukraine through land border crossings after Russia launched a large-scale military assault.

With increasing concerns over the safety of Indians in Ukraine, Modi chaired a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) with a primary focus of evacuating the citizens.

The MEA said there were around 20,000 Indians in Ukraine and of them, nearly 4,000 have returned to India in the last few days.