In the spirit of India-Philippine friendship, a total of 144 stranded Filipino nationals were repatriated from India recently. They landed in Manila on Air India aircraft which are operating under the Indian initiative tagged as Vande Bharat Mission, one of the largest evacuation program to repatriate stranded Indian nationals across the globe amid COVID-19 global pandemic. The repatriation of the stranded Filipino nationals was accomplished on 24th and 30th May from the Indian cities of Mumbai and Delhi.
On 24th May, Air India flight AI 1322 flew to NAIA with 96 stranded Filipino nationals, including seafarer. On 30th May, 48 stranded Filipinos were brought back to Manila from Delhi on Air India’s special flight AI 1315. These were the result of close coordination between the Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Civil Aviation of India and the Embassy of the Republic of the Philippines in New Delhi and the Department of Foreign Affairs, Government of the Philippines.
Under this same program, nearly 1800 stranded Indians have so far been evacuated from the Philippines to India through flights to different Indian cities from Manila and Cebu.
