A total of 489 Indian citizens stranded in Ukraine reached Delhi on Monday on two evacuation flights operated by Air India, PTI reported. One of the flights arrived in Delhi from the Romanian capital of Bucharest carrying 249 people, while the other landed in the city from the Hungarian capital of Budapest with 240 evacuees.

On Tuesday morning, an Air India Express flight carrying another 182 Indians who were stuck in the east European country landed in Mumbai, according to PTI. The flight originated from Bucharest and reached Mumbai via Kuwait.

This is the second evacuation flight to have landed in Mumbai. The first such flight, carrying 219 citizens, reached the city on February 26.

After Ukraine closed its airspace for civilian aircraft following an attack from Russia, India has been looking to evacuate citizens from the country through land routes. The citizens are being brought back to India on flights from neighbouring countries of Ukraine – Poland, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.

In the early hours of Tuesday, two more flights carrying Indian citizens left Budapest and Bucharest for New Delhi. While the flight from Budapest has 216 citizens, the one from Bucharest has 218 citizens.

In all, India has operated nine flights till now to bring back its citizens stranded in Ukraine. More than 1,500 citizens have been evacuated from Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the Indian Embassy in Ukraine said on Monday that through the day, it had facilitated the evacuation of more than 1,000 Indian students from the capital city of Kyiv to western Ukraine. These included 400 students who left Kyiv by train.

The evacuation process has been named “Operation Ganga”. On Sunday, the Indian government set up a dedicated Twitter handle to provide information and assistance regarding the evacuation process.

However, over the weekend, several Indians have alleged that they have been stopped from crossing the country’s borders and have been assaulted by the authorities of the conflict-hit country.

Before Russia started its “military operation” in Ukraine, there were about 20,000 Indians in the country. Of them, nearly 4,000 had left Ukraine before it closed airspace. Even as nearly 2,000 Indians have been evacuated, or are in the process of being brought back, the majority of citizens living in Ukraine – many of them medical students – are still stuck there.