S Jaishankar visits Egyptian war cemetery to honour WWI Indian soldiers

Cairo: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar visited the Heliopolis Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery in Egypt to honour the memory of nameless Indian soldiers who fought and died in the First World War in Egypt and Palestine.

He is on a two-day visit to Egypt at the invitation of his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Hassan Shoukry.

After the visit on Saturday, he tweeted: "Indians have made sacrifices across the world in the service of humanity. They inspire us as we strive to create a more contemporary and equitable global order." He also shared photographs of the war cemetery which includes the Heliopolis (Port Tewfik) Memorial and the Heliopolis (Aden) Memorial.

The Heliopolis (Port Tewfik) Memorial commemorates 4,000 men who served and died in the British Indian Army. The Heliopolis (Aden) Memorial commemorates more than 600 men of the Commonwealth forces who died in the defence of Aden during WW-I. None of the soldiers have known graves as their identities were lost.

During World War I, over one million Indian soldiers were deployed to serve in the Indian Army as part of Britain's imperial war effort. They fought in France and Belgium, Egypt and East Africa, and Gallipoli, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. 62,000 of them died and another 67,000 were wounded. Field-Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army from 1942, has said the British could not have come through both World Wars without the Indian Army.