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After four days of uncertainly, it was a major relief for the 263 Indians working at a crude oil terminal project in Rass Issa peninsula in Yemen as the Indian Government fastened the evacuation through sea route from the troubled region.
The employees, mostly from Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and West Bengal, working for a consortium of EPC contractors - Vadodara-based IOTAEC Ltd and Sharjah-based Chemie-Tech in Yemen - had been stuck up in Al Hudaydah's hotel since Sunday night.
It was on Monday morning, they had to fly to Djibouti through an Egyptian chartered plane, which their employers had arranged fearing danger to their life amid heavy bombing and air strikes by Saudi Arabian forces.
But the Egyptian aircraft, like other foreign aircraft, was not given clearance to land by the Saudi Arabian authorities, who command the air space in Yemen.
"This development worried us. We accommodated our employees at a hotel in Al Hudaydah, from where they were to leave in a chartered flight on Monday morning. But uncertainty prevailed after Saudi Arabia did not allow chartered flight's landing in Yemen," Asim Chandra, director & CEO, IOT Anwesha Engineering & Construction Ltd (IOTAEC), told BusinessLine .
"Later, we learned that Indian airplanes were given permission to fly. To take this chance, we requested the Indian authorities to provide us an Air India plane for ourselves as chartered. But as that discussions were underway, we had this Navy ship evacuating people from Al Hudaydah and moving to Djibouti," Chandra said, adding that meanwhile the company officials remained in constant contact with the employees.
On Friday, about 64 people of the consortium were evacuated through the ship to Djibouti, where the Union Minister of State for Overseas Indian Affairs, Gen (Retd) V.K. Singh, is overseeing the evacuation operations.
"We expect the remaining people to be evacuated from Yemen by tomorrow. We are happy with the support from the Government," Chandra said.
Crude storage unit
The work on the project of 2.2 million barrels of crude storage facility had started in June 2014 and it had 90 employees working on the site till January 2015. "It was only in the past two months we increased our workforce there. The work has been affected due to the disturbance," IOTAEC official said.
The employees included 20 managerial staff, 10 consultants of an EPC consulting firm, engineers, semi and unskilled workers. There were no female employees on the site. The Government of India has arranged their return by air to Mumbai or Kochi and from there to their respective destination through train, the official informed.
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