China began evacuating hundreds of its nationals from India starting from Monday due to the prevailing COVID-19 situation in the country, the official media reported. One flight from Mumbai left on Monday while four more chartered flights taking Chinese nationals back home will depart from India in the coming days, according to media reports.

Quoting an official surnamed Hu, the paper said that four chartered flights will depart from the Indian cities of Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata and arrive in China in the coming days.

“People want to go back to China badly,” Hu said.

He said there were about 3,000 Chinese people doing business or studying in big cities in India, and about half of them returned to China before the lockdown began on March 25.

India entered the club of 10 countries most-hit by Coronavirus, with total number of infections approaching 1.40 lakh. According to the Ministry of Health, at least 4,021 deaths have been recorded due to coronavirus since the first case was detected in the southern state of Kerala on January 30. Incidentally, India’s first coronavirus patient had been diagnosed with coronavirus after returning from Wuhan, the fountainhead of the global outbreak.