COLOMBO: Sri Lanka has offloaded crew of an Iranian navy vessel and assumed countrol of it, the South Asian nation’s president said Thursday, a day after a deadly US submarine attack on another Iranian vessel.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said in a televised address that his country’s navy had offloaded 208 sailors from the IRIS Bushehr, which had requested port entry due to engine trouble.
The Bushehr, like the ship torpedoed off Sri Lanka’s southern coast on Wednesday, the IRIS Dena, had recently participated in a naval exercise in eastern India, Dissanayake said.
At least 84 sailors were killed in the torpedo attack, which was the first military strike far outside the Middle East region since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Thursday denounced the attack and warned Washington it would “bitterly regret” establishing such a precedent.
Dissanayake said his country was “not taking sides in this conflict”.
“But while maintaining our neutrality we are taking action to save lives,” he said.
“No person should die in a war like this. Every life is equally precious.”
The Bushehr was close to Colombo, the nation’s main seaport, but it will not be anchored there due to the risk to merchant shipping, the president said, noting possible increases in insurance rates.
The ship will therefore be taken to the smaller Trincomalee port on the north-eastern side of the island, he said.
Meanwhile in the southern port city of Galle, where the recovered bodies of the 84 Iranian sailors were taken, authorities began an inquest into the deaths.
With the local morgue only able to handle about 25 bodies at a time, hospital staff said authorities were rushing to set up refrigerated shipping containers to preserve the remains until legal formalities were completed.
Navy spokesman Buddhika Sampath said authorities were continuing the search for missing sailors.
Sri Lanka earlier said that there were 180 people on board the ship — more than the Iranian figure of 130 — when it was struck by a torpedo.
The US defence secretary on Wednesday said the strike was the first by an American submarine since World War II.
