Middle East War: Bodies of 84 Iranian sailors killed off Sri Lanka to be flown home via India

Colombo: The bodies of 84 Iranian sailors killed in a US submarine attack on a warship off Sri Lanka's coast last week will be repatriated on a plane that an Indian source said will also stop in India to take home crew members from another ship.

Iranian warship IRIS Dena was sunk by a torpedo from a US submarine on March 4 while it was returning from a naval exercise in India amid the US-Israeli war on Iran. Two other ships that also participated in the exercises sought shelter: the IRIS Lavan, which docked in India, and the IRIS Booshehr which docked in Sri Lanka.

Also Read: Sri Lanka hands over 45 Iranian sailors' bodies to embassy


A Sri Lankan court ordered this week that the bodies of the sailors killed in the attack, stored in a morgue in the southern port city of Galle's National Hospital, be handed over to the embassy of Iran.

The bodies will be repatriated on Friday by a special flight departing from Mattala International Airport in the southern part of the Indian Ocean island nation, Sri Lankan media reported, citing the Sri Lankan defence ministry. "Arrangements are being made to transport the bodies of the Iranian crew from the hospital to the Mattala airport," a source in the Iranian embassy in Colombo said.

PLANE TO PICK UP CREW FROM INDIA

An Indian official said that after the plane departs Sri Lanka carrying the bodies, India would allow it to land in India to pick up some of the 183 sailors from the IRIS Lavan, as well as some tourists stranded in India. Reuters