46 Indian Nurses Freed From Iraq Reach Kochi, Reunite With Families

KOCHI, INDIA - JULY 5: 46 Indian nurses who were briefly held hostage in Iraq by ISIS militants arrived in a special Air India (AI) flight, received by Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy and other ministers, at Kochi International Airport, on July 5, 2014 in Kochi, India. The nurses, who were stranded in a hospital for a little over a week, had been caught in the fighting between the al-Qaeda splinter group, Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIS), and Iraqi government forces trying to retake the town of Tikrit from the Sunni insurgents. Hundreds of people had thronged the arrival lounge of the international airport from early morning to express their solidarity with the nurses who had been working in a 600-bed hospital in Iraq's Tikrit. (Photo by Vivek Nair/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)