Two Indian evacuation ships carrying 445 people from Yemen, mainly foreign nationals, will sail in to Kochi on Saturday.
The exact number of foreign nationals on the ship, picked up from Djibouti, is still not known. However, officials here indicate that fewer than 100 were Indians and that the majority were Bangladeshis. Officials from the Bangladeshi embassy in Delhi have arrived in Kochi to facilitate the onward journey of their nationals.
It is said that there are some two dozen Yemen nationals too on board the two ships. They had boarded the ship as refugees from their war-torn country.
The two passenger ships, m.v. Coral and m.v. Kavaratti, which used to ferry passengers from Kochi to Lakshadweep islands, had been sent from Kochi to Djibouti by the Union Government weeks before to evacuate Indians in Yemen, most of whom were Keralites. Already, a large number of Indians have been airlifted and brought back home.