{"id":43364,"date":"2026-03-11T09:04:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T09:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=43364"},"modified":"2026-03-11T09:04:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T09:04:26","slug":"sri-lanka-court-orders-84-iranian-sailors-bodies-be-handed-to-iran-embassy-local-media-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=43364","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka court orders 84 Iranian sailors&#8217; bodies be handed to Iran embassy, local media says"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>A Sri Lankan court has ordered that the bodies of 84 sailors killed in an attack on an Iranian warship off the \u200bisland nation&#8217;s coast last week be handed over to the embassy \u200cof Iran, local media reported on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The warship, IRIS Dena, was hit by a torpedo from a US submarine while it was returning from a naval exercise organised by India, amid \u200bthe US-Israeli war on Iran that has wreaked havoc on global markets, sent \u200boil prices soaring, and disrupted trade and travel.<\/p>\n<p>The court order was \u2060issued on Wednesday following a request from the Galle Harbour Police in the \u200bsouthern port city of Galle, the media reports said. The bodies are currently at the \u200bmorgue in Galle&#8217;s National Hospital.<\/p>\n<p>Read: Middle East on brink as retaliation cycle intensifies<\/p>\n<p>Sri Lanka has also granted 30-day entry visas to 208 crew members from a second Iranian vessel who were taken in by the South Asian country after the vessel \u200bexperienced engine problems in the same region, Deputy Defence Minister Aruna Jayasekera told \u200bReuters.<\/p>\n<p>The Sri Lankan foreign ministry is in touch with the Iranian embassy in Colombo about the \u200ccrew \u2060and the mission is in turn consulting Tehran, Jayasekara said. &#8220;We are expecting a response from Tehran over the next few days,&#8221; he said. A spokesperson for Sri Lanka&#8217;s cabinet said on Tuesday that the second vessel, IRIS Booshehr, was nine nautical miles from \u200bthe coast and \u200bwould eventually be \u2060moved.<\/p>\n<p>Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake last week said the ship would be moved to the Trincomalee harbour on the east \u200bcoast. Reuters reported that Washington was pressing Colombo to not repatriate the \u200bsurvivors from \u2060the two Iranian vessels.<\/p>\n<p>Thirty-two people survived the attack on IRIS Dena. Both Washington and Tehran are key trade partners for Sri Lanka. The US accounts for about 40% of \u2060its apparel \u200bexports and Iran is one of its main \u200btea buyers.<\/p>\n<p>A third Iranian warship, the IRIS Lavan with 183 crew members, is docked in the southern Indian \u200bport of Kochi.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Sri Lankan court has ordered that the bodies of 84 sailors killed in an attack on an Iranian warship off the \u200bisland nation&#8217;s coast last week be handed over to the embassy \u200cof Iran, local media reported on Wednesday. The warship, IRIS Dena, was hit by a torpedo from a US submarine while it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}