Sri Lankan Navy ‘safely’ transfers 204 Iranian sailors onboard second ship to Colombo

Sri Lanka Navy safely transferred 204 Iranian personnel from the troubled naval vessel IRINS Bushehr to Colombo after an engine failure. The development follows the sinking of Iranian frigate IRIS Dena amid escalating US-Iran tensions

Colombo: The Sri Lankan Navy on Friday said 204 of the 208 Iranian personnel on board IRINS Bushehr have been “safely” transferred to the port of Colombo, two days after another Iranian frigate was sunk near the island nation.

Four sailors are remaining on the ship which had developed trouble in one of the engines, the navy said.

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The navy said it will take at least two more days for the ship to reach the eastern port of Trincomalee from its current location outside capital Colombo.

Navy spokesman Commander Buddika Sampath said the Iranian sailors will be taken to the navy camp at Welisara, a northern suburb in Colombo.

“They will be subject to medical examination as a formality of registration,” Sampath said.

In a televised address on Thursday, Dissanayake said the vessel, IRINS Bushehr, had sought permission to enter Sri Lankan waters, citing an engine failure.

“We wanted to remain neutral while dealing with a humanitarian response,” he said, adding that Sri Lanka’s role was limited to responding to a request from one party involved in the conflict.

“No one deserves to die. Every life is precious,” the president said.

He also criticised opposition parties for attempting to politicise the situation.

“We won’t succumb to pressure. We will maintain our neutrality,” Dissanayake said.

According to the president, the ship had 208 personnel on board, comprising 53 officers, 84 cadets, 48 senior sailors and 23 seamen.

Dissanayake said on February 26, Iran sought Sri Lanka’s permission to enter the port of Colombo for four days between March 9 to 13 for the purpose of a “goodwill visit”.

“That was not the proper way for goodwill visits. We were studying the situation. On February 27, we were told that a sailor had tripped and fallen and required assistance to bring him ashore.” He added that after the attack on IRIS Dena, the first Iranian ship that was torpedoed by the US, the second Iranian ship asked to dock in Colombo on March 4 and 5.

Meanwhile, the hospital authorities in Galle said that the Karapitiya hospital’s morgue capacity was inadequate to hold the over 90 bodies of the Iranian sailors killed in the US attack on the first ship.

They were being kept wrapped in saw dust and ice in makeshift storage until the government could take decision on repatriating them.

Sri Lanka on Wednesday said it had recovered 84 bodies of Iranian sailors killed after the US submarine attack sank the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena off Galle, the island’s southern coastal town.

The ship was returning home from Visakhapatnam in India after a naval fleet review exercise.

The US and Israel have launched a massive joint attack on Iran since February 28. The war has extended to almost the entire Gulf region with Iran’s retaliation.