Sri Lanka Repatriates Remains of 84 Iranians After US Attack
Sri Lanka prepares to return the bodies of Iranian sailors after their warship was sunk near its coast.
Iranian frigate IRIS Dena – (Web Desk) – Sri Lanka will send back the remains of 84 Iranian sailors on Friday. They died after their naval ship sank nine days ago. The Iranian frigate IRIS Dena was hit by a torpedo from a United States submarine on March 4. The attack happened close to the coast of Sri Lanka and raised fears that the conflict in the Middle East was spreading into the Indian Ocean.
A spokesman for Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry, Thushara Rodrigo, said all local formalities are now complete. Iran is sending a chartered aircraft to take the bodies home. He also said that 32 sailors who survived the attack will stay in Sri Lanka for now.
The wounded sailors received medical care after the rescue. Officials said the International Committee of the Red Cross was contacted about the injured men. However, the group is not involved in returning the bodies.
Another Iranian naval ship, IRIS Bushehr, entered Sri Lankan waters a day after the attack. Sri Lanka allowed the ship to stay and gave shelter to its crew of 219 sailors. Authorities say they have not yet discussed sending these sailors back to Iran. For now, they will be treated according to Sri Lanka’s international agreements.
Out of the 32 rescued sailors, 22 have already left the hospital. They are now staying at an air force base in the southern part of the island. They are being kept separate from the crew of the IRIS Bushehr. At the moment, Sri Lanka is hosting about 251 Iranian sailors in total.
The Bushehr crew is staying at a navy camp north of Colombo. Sri Lanka’s navy has taken control of the ship for repairs. One of its two engines was reported to have problems and is being fixed.
A third Iranian vessel sailed past Sri Lanka and found shelter in the southern Indian port of Kochi. The ship’s 183 crew members are now under the care of authorities in India.
Officials in both Sri Lanka and India said they helped the Iranian sailors for humanitarian reasons. There were fears that the ships and their crews could also become targets of more US attacks.
The ships had been taking part in a naval exercise organised by India off the coast of Visakhapatnam when the US and Israel began bombing Iran.
A local undertaker said the embalmed remains of the Iranian sailors were being sent back in sealed boxes.
They are to be flown out of Sri Lanka from Mattala International Airport in the south of the country, officials said, as security was stepped up at the airport, which is located within a wildlife sanctuary.
The first batch of 46 bodies was already at the airport by Friday afternoon, awaiting an Iranian chartered cargo plane, an official told AFP.
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The bodies, which were plucked from the Indian Ocean, were taken to Karapitiya Hospital in Galle, 115 kilometres (72 miles) south of the capital, where autopsies were carried out.
A local magistrate ordered that the bodies be handed over to the Iranian embassy in Colombo for repatriation to the next of kin.
There was no immediate comment from the Iranian embassy when contacted by AFP.
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