Houthi rebel attack and Saudi Arabia’s intervention has been one of the major issues in the middle east. It is also one of the largest interventions and proxy wars that is being fought. But in 2015 as the ‘war’ started, India started ‘Operation Raahat’ that worked to rescue Indian nationals from Yemen.
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When the issue sprang up, the biggest issue before the Ministry of External Affairs was to get out Indians. It was led by Sushma Swaraj who was the MEA. About 5000 Indians were stuck in Yemen.
She was in a fix as there was no way they could be rescued. There was problem on Land, Water and even Air. It was becoming more and more challenging each day.
She remembered how the Indian PM, Narendra Modi had recently met with the King of Saudi Arabia recently in Brisbane and their relationship appeared warm. She rushed to the PM and asked him to request the Saudi King to stop the shelling and bombing for a period of 7 days and within this, they will be able to rescue the Indians from there.
The Indian PM called up the Saudi King and requested him to do so. The Saudi king asked him a period of an hour and got back within that. The King said that it is not possible to stop the shelling for seven days rather he can pause it for two hours on a daily basis for a span of seven days.
The Indian side agreed on this and now the onus was on the MEA. Sushma Swaraj further contacted the Yemen Govt and opened the air strip for about 2 hours in the specified time for seven days. The Minister of state VK Singh reached Djibouti to handle the operation and Sushma Swaraj monitored it from India.
With this coordination India was able to rescue 5000 Indians and 2000 individuals from about 48 nations.
This proved the Indian mettle. Operation Rahaat was successful as India was requested by nations like America and France to get out their citizens as well!
Hear the story from the woman herself!
Hear this. pic.twitter.com/uF9qeEG69I
— Gaurav (@aurbolo) March 3, 2022
