Eleven Indians evacuated by a Pakistani navy ship from strife-torn Yemen arrived by a special Pakistan Air Force plane in New Delhi Wednesday night, marking a rare instance of co-operation between the two neighbours.

Pakistani navy personnel on board PNS Aslat evacuated the Indian nationals from the Yemeni port city of Mukalla on Sunday, setting sail for Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, where they arrived on Tuesday.

Ramasami Anbazhagan, a chemical engineer from Chennai, India, was working for an oil and gas company in the Hadramaut region of Yemen at the time of his evacuation.

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"The place I was staying, there was not much problem," said Mr. Anbazhagan in a phone interview shortly after arriving in Chennai. "As a precaution, my employer asked us to go back. In some areas, there were problems."

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has reportedly made inroads into the Hadramaut region, taking advantage of the strife in Yemen. Mukalla, the region's capital, was targeted by militants last week who broke into a jail, freed dozens of prisoners and attacked a military base, killing five soldiers.

Mr. Anbazhagan added that, because the airport in Mukulla was inaccessible, his company ordered all 30 of its employees to board PNS Aslat, which docked in the vicinity and had around a 180 passengers on board, mainly Pakistanis.

Once in Karachi, Mr. Anbazhagan and his colleagues were put up in a hotel by Pakistani authorities, working in conjunction with the Indian embassy.

"They were very friendly … they were very helpful in filling formalities. They took us to the hotel," he said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif for his "humanitarian gesture," the Press Trust of India reported on Wednesday. "Service to humanity knows no borders," Mr. Modi added.

Pakistan and India have been conducting frequent evacuation and rescue operations as the insurgency intensifies in Yemen. "A thousand coming back to India tonight, if all goes well," Syed Akbaruddin, the official spokesperson for the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, said on Twitter on Tuesday.

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India evacuated 232 people from 26 countries on Tuesday, including 17 Pakistanis, according to a list released by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.

Karachi-based Syed Arsalan Ali recently met his sister and brother-in-law at the airport after they fled Sanaa by plane on the first flight organized by the Pakistani government. They left with only one carry-on, Mr. Ali said. "You know how bad the situation is there," he said. "They'll contemplate going back only once the situation gets better."

Despite the current gestures of goodwill, Pakistan and India share an uneasy relationship. The two countries have gone to war three times, in 1965, 1971 and 1999. There are frequent border skirmishes between their militaries over the disputed territory of Kashmir; both countries often point the finger at the other for inciting the violence.

More evacuations are expected to take place in the coming days. "Responding to needs of 140 nurses India extends air evacuation from Yemen by a day," Mr. Akbaruddin tweeted on Wednesday, who added that the flights were subject to clearance.