23-year-old Mohini Madlani says the sight of the uneventful tarmac of the terminal at the Indian Air Force's Technical airport in Palam ended the long-winding drama that she and her husband had witnessed in the last 72 hours. The Juba resident, who works as a financial consultant at the United Nations, says that she was stuck for hours before help arrived through the Indian government.

MOHINI MADLANI

"We were holed up in the UN compound, and resources were drying up. Even the UN compound was not a safe zone, and several rounds of firing were heard there, too," said Mohini. She had moved to Sudan three months ago, and is unsure of what lies next, as she prepared to leave for hometown Jamnagar.

As the C-17 Air Force Jumbo landed in Delhi, it ended the gruelling experience of over 156 Indians, stranded in Jubah. Mohini was one of 10 women who were rescued, along with three infants and 143 men, including two Nepal citizens and an Indian army official. The flight, which left Sudan on Thursday, first landed in Thiruvananthapuram at 4am to drop over 30 Tamil Nadu and 41 Kerala residents. The aircraft had made its way to India via Uganda, where union minister General VK Singh stopped to meet Ugandan prime minister Ruhakana Rugunda.

Professor TK Saha, who hailed from West Bengal, and has been in Juba for the past two years said that the situation was terrible. "The clashes started last Thursday, and by Friday the situation had deteriorated. For hours on end, all I could hear was heavy artillery and gunshots. I was lucky that I lived close to the hotel where we were being put up for safety," said Professor Saha, who is the vice-chancellor of Stanford University in Juba.

TK SAHA

Delhi resident Sarvaprit Singh, who was working in Juba with the UN as a consultant for the past four years, said that he was holed up in the basement of a hotel for over two days. "Conflict between two parties, the government soldiers and the rebels started without any sign of warning. They were supposed to sign the peace agreement, and just a day before the Independence Day of South Sudan on July 9, bombing started. We were in the hotel, where we heard constant gunshots," he said, adding that he witnessed the death of a Rwandan armyman and two Chinese soldiers have died.

The Air Force team that carried out the operation

General VK Singh, who carried out the rescue operation, titled Operation Sankat Mochan, was welcomed by union minister Vijay Goel. "We have the Indian government, our PM Narendra Modi, and foreign affairs minister Sushma Swaraj to thank for the evacuation process. Special thanks must go out to the Indian Air Force, who carried out the operation in the shortest possible time. There are over 300 people who did not wish to leave Sudan, we have rescued 156 people, and over 40 people had booked commercial tickets on their own. They started leaving Sudan as soon as the rescue operations were started there," said Singh, adding the situation has improved. He also met the vice-president of Sudan who promised help.

An MEA spokesperson said that MEA minister Sushma Swaraj was involved in the process all along. She has been tweeting details of the rescue operations in the last few days. "This entire operation has been under the direct supervision of the external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj who had formed a high level task force to monitor the situation in South Sudan. In our assessment this was an opportune moment to arrange for the evacuation, especially since the ceasefire is holding and there is a lull in hostilities," said the spokesperson.

Most of the evacuees were put on flight and trains that were arranged for their onward journeys home.

Aircraft on standby"This operation was a successful one, and a long haul search mission to evacuate the Indian diaspora from Juba. We took off from Delhi on Thursday at about 5am in the morning, and we landed at 4am in the morning at Trivandrum today (Friday). With 24 hours, we flew for over 18 hours, and we flew non-stop to ensure that all our evacuees were safe. End of crisis. We have our aircraft on standby. In case the Indians who stayed behind want to come, we will go back to fetch them," said Group Captain TR Ravi, who carried out the mission.

BOX 2Telengana - 54Andhra Pradesh - 10Gujarat - 36Maharashtra - 22Uttar Pradesh - 3Karnataka - 32Odisha - 2Tamil Nadu - 30Punjab - 1Chandigarh - 3Bihar - 1Kerala - 41Jharkhand - 2West Bengal - 5Uttar Pradesh - 4Rajasthan - 9Delhi - 50