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| Iraq |
| Indian nurses walk to freedom in Mosul |
| 2014-07-05 |
| In a dramatic turn of events, the 46 nurses who were forcibly taken to Mosul by Iraqi militants were handed over to Indian authorities on Friday afternoon. At 9am when this correspondent managed to speak to one of the nurses held captive in a Mosul building, she said she was unaware of any such move. The woman sounded a bit worried though she said there was no threat to life. They were served dinner but there was no breakfast which she said could be due to fasting in the holy month of Ramadan. A few minutes later, jaws dropped and smiles froze on their lips when the militants told the captives to pack up and board a bus to travel to the airport. They did not say which airport they were headed to, though most of them presumed it to be Arbil, which is around 80km away. The women from the south Indian state of Kerala scrambled to send "homecoming" messages to their parents. At the drop of a hat, politicians took to the social media to hail the happy ending to the nurses saga as a huge diplomatic victory for the Narendra Modi government at the centre. The visual media celebrated the news as parents forwarded messages from their wards. According to sources, the militants handed over the nurses at the Mosul checkpoint to intermediaries who ferried them through the no-man's land to the Kurdish checkpoint. The sources said that the Kurdish authorities, after formalities, transported the women to the Arbil checkpoint and handed them over to waiting Indian Embassy officials, including Ambassador Ajay Kumar. The nurses were then shifted to hotel rooms in the Kurdish regional capital for an overnight stay. The Indian mission has made all arrangements at the Arbil airport to provide travel documents to those who do not have them. A special aircraft took off from New Delhi for Arbil on Friday evening with central and state government officials to bring the nurses directly to Cochin in the early hours of Saturday. Sources said the aircraft will also bring home several workers who had been stranded in the Iraqi city of Karbala. Hundreds of Indians who are working in the non-conflict parts of Iraq, including in places such as Basra, Najaf and Karbala, are scheduled to return by regular commercial flights in the coming days. A relieved Oommen Chandy, chief minister of Kerala where the nurses hail from, was happy and relieved that the nurses are finally able to return home safely. He said it was the joint effort of many that culminated in a peaceful resolution of the crisis. "Ultimately, it is hope that has triumphed," Syed Akbaruddin, spokesman for the Indian External Affairs Ministry, told reporters in New Delhi. "I can confirm to you that those Indian nurses who were yesterday moved against their will are now free." |
| Posted by:Steve White |