A charter plane arranged by Iran took off from Kochi for Armenia late on Friday carrying most of the crew of the Iranian warship Iris Lavan that docked in a Kerala port last week, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.
The private charter flight also carried the bodies of Iranian sailors who were killed when another warship, the Iris Dina, was hit by a torpedo and sunk by a US submarine near Sri Lanka on March 4, the sources said, requesting anonymity.
Read also: Trump says the United States struck Iran’s “crown jewel” Kharg Island and warns Tehran against a siege of Hormuz
These people said that the crew of Lavan and the bodies of sailors from the ship Dina will be transported to Iran by land.
The Iranian side is returning non-essential members of the IRIS Lavan’s 183-member crew, while a limited number of crew members will remain for the maintenance of the warship, the sources said.
The chartered flight, likely from Türkiye, traveled to Colombo to retrieve the bodies of the sailors killed during the sinking of the IRIS Dena, the people said.
Read also: Iran allows two Indian-flagged liquefied gas tankers to cross the Strait of Hormuz
Reports in the Sri Lankan media said that 45 bodies of the crew members of the IRIS Dena were transferred from the Galle National Hospital to the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport for air transport.
Sri Lankan authorities have recovered the bodies of 84 Iranian sailors after the IRIS Dena ship sank. They also rescued 32 crew members who were being held at a naval facility.
IRIS Dena participated in the International Fleet Review and multi-nation exercise hosted by the Indian Navy last month.
On March 1, India granted permission to three Iranian warships that were in territorial waters – Iris Dina, Iris Lavan, and Iris Bushehr – to dock in the country’s ports in response to a request from Tehran. However, only the IRIS Lavan docked in Kochi on March 4 and its 183-member crew was accommodated at offshore facilities.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said the Indian government’s decision to allow IRIS Lavan to dock in Kochi was “the right thing to do”, and that the decision was taken on humanitarian grounds.
The IRIS Booshehr docked in Colombo and its 204 crew were sent to a Sri Lankan naval facility, while the IRIS Dena was sunk by a US submarine in international waters off the southern coast of Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan authorities and Iranian Embassy officials in Colombo are in discussions regarding the next steps for the Iranian sailors currently under Sri Lanka’s care. The Sri Lankan government decided to grant free visas for a month to Iranian sailors and provide them with the necessary facilities for humanitarian reasons.
