Iran to fly out 183 sailors 10 days after warship IRIS Lavan docked in Kochi
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka is repatriating the bodies of the 84 Iranian sailors who died on board IRIS Dena, which was sunk by a US submarine on March 4
Iran will fly out its 183 sailors stranded in Kochi on Friday night, while its warship IRIS Lavan, which docked at the southern port city for maintenance, remains there. Sources confirmed to The Tribune that the sailors are being flown back home. They were on board the warship IRIS Lavan, which docked at Kochi on March 4.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka is repatriating the bodies of the 84 Iranian sailors who died on board IRIS Dena, which was sunk by a US submarine on March 4, about 38 km west of Galle, a Sri Lankan port city.
Iran’s three warships, IRIS Dena, IRIS Lavan, and IRIS Bushehr, were part of a flotilla that had sailed eastwards towards India from Iran in the first fortnight of February. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, speaking at Raisina Dialogue, detailed how IRIS Lavan reached Kochi. “We got a message from the Iranian side that one of the ships, which was presumably closest to our borders at that point, wanted to come into our port... On March 1, we said you can come in, and it took them a few days to sail in, and then they docked in Kochi (on March 4).”
Jaishankar added, “We approached the situation from the point of view of humanity.” The same day, March 4, IRIS Dena was torpedoed by a US submarine at sea. The third Iranian ship, IRIS Bushehr, had sought help from Sri Lanka and was given shelter at Trincomalee, a port on the north-eastern side of Sri Lanka.
In mid-February, when the Iranian flotilla sailed eastwards, Iran decided to field IRIS Dena for the International Fleet Review (IFR) and the exercise Milan at Vishakhapatnam. The other two ships remained in the high seas. The IFR was on February 18, and the week-long Milan exercise was from February 19 to 26.
