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.
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 defense ministry.
