If all goes well and there’s no last-minute hitch, a special Air India flight carrying 46 nurses and 70 other Indians stranded in strife-torn Iraq would have landed in Kochi on Saturday morning. That should be celebratory news for families spending sleepless nights ever since the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or the ISIL (earlier known as the ISIS) launched its depredations, taking everybody by surprise.

Praying for thier safe return: Indian relatives of workers missing in Iraq pose as they hold up photographs bearing their images in Khatuli village in Patiala on June 20, 2014. Pic/AFP