In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, the Ministry of External Affairs said the total number of Indians infected by corona virus overseas is 276 – 255 in Iran, 12 in UAE, five in Italy, and one each in Hong Kong, Kuwait, Rwanda and Sri Lanka.

“The Indian Embassies in the respective countries are in touch with such Indian citizens regarding appropriate medical attention in cooperation with local authorities,” he said.

The Indians in Iran were part of a delegation of over 800 from Kargil in Ladakh, who have been stuck in Iran since February. Most of them are stranded in hotels and other accommodation in Qom, one of the areas in Iran worst affected by the corona virus outbreak.

A fourth batch of 53 Indians returned to India from Iran on Monday, taking the total number of people evacuated from the corona virus-hit country to 389.

Iran is one of the worst-affected countries by the coronavirus outbreak and the government has been working to bring back Indians stranded there. Over 700 people have died from the disease in Iran and nearly 14,000 cases detected.

Corona virus has infected nearly 2 lakh people worldwide and nearly 150 in India, where three people have died.

The government has already taken measures including suspending most visas into the country. On Monday it expanded travel restrictions, banning passengers from countries of the European Union and European Free Trade Association, Turkey and the United Kingdom – including its own citizens.

It has also closed down schools, cinemas, malls, gyms and major tourist sites including the Taj Mahal, while most major cities asked offices providing non-essential services to keep their staff at home in increased measures to curb the COVID-19 pandemic in India.

His comments came at the start of a five-day Gulf tour that had been thrown into doubt after Tehran responded to the attack on Qasem Soleimani by launching a barrage of missiles at bases hosting American troops in Iraq, prompting fears of all-out war.

But as those concerns receded, the Japanese premier decided to go ahead with the visit and on Sunday discussed regional tensions during an hour-long meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in northwestern Al-Ula province, according to foreign ministry spokesman Masato Ohtaka.

“Any military confrontation in the region that includes a country like Iran will have an impact not only on peace and stability in the region but the peace and stability of the whole world,” Abe said, according to Ohtaka.

Abe called “on all relevant countries to engage in diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions”, Ohtaka added.

The spokesman said the two leaders agreed on working closely on maritime security in the region and discussed Tokyo’s decision to send a destroyer for intelligence activities along with two P-3C patrol aircraft to the Middle East.

Japan, however, will not join a US-led coalition in the region.

Ohtaka said Abe stressed the importance of a continuous and stable Saudi oil supply to Japan

Ohtaka said Abe stressed the importance of a continuous and stable Saudi oil supply to Japan.

“India’s efforts remain focused on peace and stability in the region and this has been reflected in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and external affairs minister S Jaishankar’s outreach to all the key players in recent days says diplomatic sources.

About 25,000 Indians are working across Iraq, mainly in infrastructure and oil sectors. Erbil, the capital of northern autonomous region of Kurdistan has the highest number of Indians.

Since Sunday, Jaishankar has spoken to both US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif and the foreign ministers of the UAE, Qatar, Oman and Jordan to discuss ways to reduce the tensions and to work for de-escalation. PM Modi has also discussed the issue with US President Donald Trump during a phone call on Tuesday.

India’s efforts are aimed at ensuring energy security and protecting the interests of some 8 million expatriates in West Asia, including more than 2.5 million in Saudi Arabia alone. Any confrontation between Iran and the US is bound to affect sea routes in the Persian Gulf and hit oil prices and supplies.

The UN has unofficially advised India’s Ambassador to Iraq to not allow more Indians to the country till the situation is back to normal. The mission is still assessing the situation and is expected to take the call soon

The online statement came hours after Iranian state television said they had launched missiles at US targets in the early hours of Wednesday in retaliation for the US killing last week of top military commander solemani .

“Between 1:45am and 2:15am [22:45 GMT and 23:15 GM] Iraq was hit by 22 missiles, 17 on the Ain al-Asad airbase and … five on the city of Erbil,” the Iraqi military said.

“There were no victims among the Iraqi forces,” it added, without mentioning whether or not there were casualties among foreign troops.

Following the strikes, US President trump said on Twitter that an “assessment of casualties & damages taking place now”.

“So far, so good!” he wrote.

More than 5,000 US troops remain in Iraq along with other foreign forces as part of a coalition that has trained and backed up Iraqi security forces in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) armed group.

Some 115 German soldiers are stationed in Erbil and all were fine, a spokesman for Bundeswehr operations said.

Denmark, which has about 130 soldiers in Iraq, said no Danish soldiers were wounded or killed in the attack on Ain al-Asad, the largest airbase where US-led coalition troops are based.

It was the first time Iran directly hit a US installation with ballistic missiles.

Soleimani, who headed Iran’s Quds Force, the overseas arm of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, was buried after the missile attacks, Iranian state television said.

Iranian state television said on Wednesday that at least 80 “American terrorists” were killed in attacks involving 15 missiles Tehran launched on U.S. targets in Iraq, adding that none of the missiles were intercepted.

State TV, citing a senior Revolutionary Guards source, also said Iran had 100 other targets in the region in its sights if Washington took any retaliatory measures. It also said U.S. helicopters and military equipment were “severely damaged”. It did not provide evidence of how it obtained that information.

“We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build, long before my time. We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One.
Trump said that if Iraq asked US forces to leave and it was not done on a friendly basis, “we will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.”
After his top diplomat, Mike Pompeo, had insisted that any military action would conform to international law, Trump said he would regard cultural sites as fair game if Iran resorted to deadly force against US targets.

“They’re allowed to kill our people, they’re allowed to torture and maim our people, they’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people and we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way,” Trump told reporters. “If they do anything there will be major retaliation.”
His comments on his return from a break in Florida followed a welter of criticism over a tweet on Saturday night in which he said sites which were “important to… Iranian culture” were on a list of 52 potential US targets.

Tehran’s foreign minister had reacted to those initial comments by drawing parallels with the Islamic State group’s destruction of the Middle East’s cultural heritage.

And as Twitter was flooded with photos of revered Iranian landmarks in ancient cities such as Isfahan under the hashtag #IranianCulturalSites, leading US Democrats said the president would be in breach of international protocols if he made good on his threat.

“You are threatening to commit war crimes,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of the top Democrats hoping to challenge Trump in November’s election, wrote on Twitter.

“We are not at war with Iran. The American people do not want a war with Iran.”

The Hashed’s deputy chief was also killed in the attack, the force added, which comes after a pro-Iran mob this week laid siege to the US embassy following deadly American air strikes on a hardline Hashed faction.
“The deputy head of the Hashed, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and head of the Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, were killed in a US strike that targeted their car on the Baghdad International Airport road,” the Hashed said in a statement early Friday.

The airport was hit in a volley of missiles just after midnight, Iraq’s military had announced.
Security sources told AFP the bombardment hit a Hashed convoy and killed eight people, including “important figures.”

The Hashed is a network of mostly-Shiite armed units, many of whom have very close ties to Tehran but which have been officially incorporated into Iraq’s state security forces.

The units joined forces to fight the Islamic State group in 2014 but many of them had built up years of fighting experience during Iraq’s war years, including against the US.

Muhandis is the Hashed’s deputy chief but widely recognised as the real shot-caller within the group.

Soleimani heads the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force and also serves as Iran’s pointman on Iraq, visiting the country in times of turmoil.

Both have been sanctioned by the United States.

There was no immediate comment from the US on the developments, which come after an unprecedented attack on its mission in Baghdad.

A mob of Hashed supporters surrounded the US embassy on Tuesday in outrage over American air strikes that killed 25 fighters from the network’s hardline Kataeb Hezbollah faction, which is backed by Iran.
The US had acted in response to a rocket attack days earlier that had killed an American contractor working in Iraq.