The government on Monday began evacuating Indians from Sudan, with the first batch of an estimated 500 people reaching Port Sudan by evening.

The evacuation has been named Operation Kaveri, according to external affairs minister S. Jaishankar.

According to government estimates, there are about 3,000 Indians in Sudan. In view of the situation on the ground, the government has also been coordinating with other countries to facilitate the inclusion of Indians in evacuations carried out by them. As a result, three Indians have already been brought out by Saudi Arabia, and France on Monday announced that it had evacuated some Indians from Sudan to Djibouti.

The start of India’s evacuation was announced by Jaishankar late on Monday afternoon through a tweet with two photographs of the evacuees. “Operation Kaveri gets underway to bring back our citizens stranded in Sudan. About 500 Indians have reached Port Sudan. More on their way. Our ships and aircraft are set to bring them back home. Committed to assist all our bretheren in Sudan,” he tweeted.

Naval vessel INS Sumedha is already docked at Port Sudan and India also has two Indian Air Force C-130J aircraft on standby in Jeddah to ferry Indians back home.

Earlier in the day, the French embassy in New Delhi announced that the country had evacuated some Indians from Sudan.

“French evacuation operations are underway. Last night, two military flight rotations evacuated 388 people from 28 countries, including Indian nationals,” the embassy said.

With the Sudan airport closed, the evacuation exercise is mostly overland, which is risky. Convoys have come under attack over the weekend.

The US used military helicopters to pull out its diplomatic staff during the weekend but the state department said it would not be able to bring out its nationals from Sudan anytime soon.