184 Sudan evacuees, including 26 from Karnataka, arrive in Kochi

Operation Kaveri, India’s mission to rescue its nationals from war-hit Sudan, saw another batch of evacuees – 184 of them – arrive in Kochi on Monday. The group included 26 people hailing from Karnataka.

The SpiceJet flight – the first by the airline in operation – arrived from Jeddah at the Cochin International Airport at 6 am. There were 148 men and 36 women in the group. They arrived on the ninth outbound flight operated from Jeddah as part of the evacuation.

A total of 281 people hailing from Karnataka have been brought home in five batches since April 27, the Karnataka State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA) said.

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70 quarantined at RGICD

Seventy people evacuated from Sudan are quarantined at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases (RGICD).

The quarantine is for those who did not have a certificate for vaccination against yellow fever, which is endemic in Sudan and 42 other countries across Africa and South America. None of the passengers has shown yellow fever symptoms so far, RGICD Director Dr Nagaraja C told DH.

A total of 80 passengers were brought to RGICD from April 28. Ten of them, with vaccination certificates, were discharged, he said.

RGICD is providing food and basic necessities free of cost to those quarantined, who are in the age group of five months to 60 years.

State Health Commissioner D Randeep said there is no alert about yellow fever and that the quarantine is part of the regular protocols of the union government.