Nervous or naive: Can India act firmly to save the nurses stranded in Iraq?

“Our government wasted precious time. Now they can send enough coffins to take us back.”

These are the words of a distraught Sona Joseph, one of the nurses, who had spoken to Hindustan Times , while they were reportedly being forcibly taken to Mosul by the ISIS.

In contrast…

“They (nurses) agreed to move out… All are safe and unharmed”—external affairs ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin at a press conference in New Delhi today.

Dangerous ground reality in Iraq as opposed to reassuring words by the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi are increasingly exposing the sense of helplessness that the Indian government is facing while attempting to rescue its citizens trapped in the war zone of Iraq. The plight of the 46 Indian nurses, who were held hostage at a Tikrit hospital till today, but now forced out to Mosul (some reports say the location is undisclosed) is clearly unfathomable from India.

Admitting that India is dealing with the “difficult times” with no option in sight to evacuate these nurses, some of whom even suffered “minor injuries”, Akbaruddin said they were moving for their own safety as there was no “freewill in a zone of conflict”. The only silver lining was the injuries are not major. “They (nurses) did not go of their own free will but they are unharmed. Our mission advised them to proceed where they are proceeding,” the MEA spokesperson said.

https://twitter.com/ANI_news/status/484654237293367296

What is surprising is that even smaller nations like Bangladesh are managing the crisis better than India.

According to a IANS report, some of the family members of the captive nurses told journalists in Kerala that they regretted the failure of the Indian government to act adequately.

“We have been told that yesterday (Wednesday) the Bangladeshi embassy officials in Iraq took their nationals in Tikrit to safety,” one family member said in Thiruvananthapuram. “Why can’t the Indian embassy do what the Bangladesh officials did?”

Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who had held a press conference in New Delhi this afternoon, said the nurses were on the move in three buses to an unknown destination, believed to be Mosul, a stronghold of the insurgents who have captured large parts of Iraq. Earlier in the day, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj held comprehensive consultations with Chandy who met her seeking an effective action to evacuate the nurses, a majority of whom are from Kerala.

A report in The Tribune said that Swaraj informed Chandy that the situation is not conducive for immediate evacuation of the nurses and they can only be brought back after the situation normalises.

Apart from the 46 nurses who are caught in a state of fear and uncertainty, there is another set of 39 Indians who are already in captivity by the ISIS. However, another 900 Indians in Iraq had some good news for themselves as the tweet below shows.

https://twitter.com/htTweets/status/484651864429178881

The capability of the Iraqi government under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to tackle the ISIS has increasingly become uncertain.

An Al Jazeera report said that Saudi Arabia has deployed 30,000 soldiers along its 800 km long border with Iraq after Iraqi soldiers withdrew from the area. Meanwhile, Iran has assured help to Iraq in its battle against the ISIS to recapture lost ground.