Jaishankar thanks Armenia after 550 Indians leave Iran, questions raised over slow evacuation as 8,000 still stranded

India has facilitated the departure of over 550 of its nationals from Iran through Armenia, as New Delhi steps up efforts to assist citizens seeking to leave amid the escalating conflict in West Asia. With approximately 9,000 Indian nationals still in Iran - comprising students, seafarers, business professionals, and pilgrims - the numbers underline how much ground remains to be covered. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar , currently on an official visit to Brussels, publicly thanked the Armenian government for enabling the land-border transit, writing on X: "Thank the Government and the people of Armenia for facilitating the safe evacuation of over 550 Indian nationals from Iran so far. Appreciate their support in these challenging times."

The Indian Embassy in Tehran has been coordinating the movement of nationals wishing to leave, helping them reach Armenia and Azerbaijan via land borders , from where commercial flights are available for onward travel to India. Many of those who have departed are students, a significant number from Jammu and Kashmir , who travelled by bus from various Iranian cities before making the long overland journey to Yerevan's Zvartnots International Airport to board flights home. The MEA has set up a 24x7 control room in New Delhi, which has already received several hundred calls and emails from individuals and families seeking assistance.

Yet the process has drawn criticism for placing an unfair burden on students in a war zone . Those wishing to leave must first book their own flight tickets from Armenia to India, submit confirmed PNR numbers to the Embassy, and only then receive guidance on when to travel to the Zulfa border crossing. Adding to the difficulty, several universities in Iran have been withholding students' passports , preventing them from making travel arrangements at all. Student associations have written to the Indian Ambassador in Tehran requesting urgent intervention on this specific issue.

The government's inability to mount a full-scale airlift of the kind seen during Operation Ganga in Ukraine or Operation Kaveri in Sudan is largely explained by one hard reality: Iranian airspace is effectively closed due to active American and Israeli airstrikes, making it impossible to fly chartered aircraft into Tehran. The security situation on the ground has deteriorated sharply, with Israeli forces reported to have struck more than 200 targets across western and central Iran in a single day, hitting missile systems, defence installations, and military headquarters, and destroying aircraft used by the Iranian leadership at Mehrabad International Airport.

The majority of stranded students are enrolled in medical programmes at Iranian universities - a choice driven less by preference than by necessity. MBBS seats in India are fiercely competitive and expensive, and Iranian universities have long offered a more accessible and affordable route into medicine, particularly for students from Jammu and Kashmir and other economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Roughly 1,200 MBBS students are believed to still be in Iran, alongside nearly 800 Indian seafarers aboard 28 ships stranded in the Strait of Hormuz.

The government has urged all Indian nationals remaining in Iran to make their way to the Armenian or Azerbaijani borders at the earliest, and has assured them of continued support through the Embassy in Tehran and the MEA's helpline in New Delhi. With well over 8,000 Indians still in the country and no formal named evacuation operation yet in place, the coming days will be critical.