Sri Lanka will repatriate the bodies of 84 Iranian sailors who were killed when their warship was torpedoed and sunk by a US submarine in the Indian Ocean earlier this month amid the ongoing war in West Asia between Israel, and the US against Iran.
The move follows a ruling by a court in Colombo ordering authorities to hand the remains over to the Iranian embassy for return to Iran.
The sailors were aboard the Iranian warship IRIS Dena, which was carrying around 180 crew members when it was torpedoed on March 4 off the coast of Sri Lanka, bringing the conflict near the waters of the Indian subcontinent.
Sri Lankan officials said 84 bodies were recovered after the ship went down, while 60 sailors remain missing. Thirty-two crew members survived and are currently staying in Sri Lanka.
The remains were taken to Karapitiya Hospital in Galle, about 115km south of Colombo, where post-mortem examinations were carried out before a magistrate ordered the bodies released to Iranian authorities.
Repatriation flights began from Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, with the first group of 46 bodies transported on Friday aboard an Iranian chartered cargo aircraft. Further flights are expected to return the remaining victims to Iran.
