The government's efforts to evacuate Indian nationals stranded in conflict-hit Iraq have picked up pace.

India's special envoy and former Ambassador to Iraq, Suresh Reddy told AIR from Baghdad that around 400 people are expected to return home in the next 48 hours. Chartered flights are being organized and travel documents processed by the Indian Embassy in Baghdad to send them back home.

Earlier, this morning, a special Iraqi Airways flight carrying 200 Indians from Najaf city landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi. Yesterday, a special Air India flight brought 46 nurses and 137 others home from Erbil.

The next task ahead of the External Affairs Ministry is to bring back home safely 39 Indian construction workers, who are still held captive by ISIS militants in Mosul for more than two weeks now. About ten thousand Indians work in Iraq. Scores of them have returned to India since trouble started in the West Asian nation.