March 11, 2026 | 09:54 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Sri Lankan Court on Wednesday, March 11, 2026, ordered the hospital authorities to hand over the bodies of 84 Iranian sailors to the Iranian Embassy in Colombo after they were recovered from the sea following a U.S. submarine attack last week.
The Chief Magistrate of Galle, Sameera Dodangoda, issued the order upon a request made by the police, as reported by the local Daily Mirror as cited by Anadolu.
The bodies were being kept in two mobile refrigeration units at a hospital in Galle, a coastal town in southern Sri Lanka.
The sailors were among those killed when a U.S. submarine attacked the Iranian warship IRIS Dena in the waters off the Sri Lankan coast last Wednesday. The Sri Lankan navy launched a rescue mission following the incident.
The Iranian military reported that the U.S. attack killed 104 out of the ship's 130 sailors. However, Sri Lankan authorities stated that they recovered 84 bodies from the water and rescued 32 sailors, while 14 others are still missing.
Several days later, Sri Lanka also evacuated 208 ship crew from a second Iranian vessel, IRIS Bushehr, after a request for assistance from Colombo.
Both ships were returning from the Milan Peace 2026 naval exercises in India.
Sri Lanka announced on Monday that it would grant one-month visas to the rescued Iranian sailors.
Debris and oil drums from the sunken IRIS Dena ship later washed ashore at several parts of the southern Sri Lankan coastline, triggering cleanup and environmental monitoring efforts by the authorities, as reported by local media.
Opposition politicians criticized the government, stating that protecting the sailors could drag the cash-strapped island nation into the Middle Eastern conflict.
The Sri Lankan government stated that they would bear the cost of the stranded sailors and provide medical care on humanitarian grounds.
Regional tensions escalated after the U.S. and Israel launched joint attacks on Iran on February 28, which Tehran claimed killed over 1,300 people, including Ali Khamenei, the former supreme leader, and over 150 schoolgirls.
Since then, Iran has launched drone and missile attacks targeting Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Gulf states hosting U.S. military assets.
Tehran has also effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz since March 1. The narrow waterway carries around 20 million barrels of oil per day and about 20 percent of the global liquefied natural gas trade.
Read: US Reportedly Urges Sri Lanka Not to Repatriate Iranian Warship Survivors
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