Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: After over 80 people were killed and dozens left missing when a US submarine torpedoed an Iranian frigate, IRIS Dena, off its shore on Wednesday, Sri Lanka is now trying to “safeguard lives” on another Iranian ship, a government spokesman said.
Nalinda Jayatissa, the Sri Lankan Cabinet spokesperson, said: “We are doing our utmost to safeguard lives. The second Iranian vessel was in the economic zone beyond the Sri Lanka’s territorial waters, the media reported on Thursday.
On Wednesday, a US submarine sank an Iranian warship with a torpedo in international waters off Sri Lanka. The attack was carried out as the US-Israeli war on Iran, which started on February 28, spreads across the volatile Middle East and beyond.
Jayatissa said the second Iranian warship is reported to be carrying more than 100 crew members and is heading to the same area where the US submarine destroyed the Iranian frigate. There are fears the second vessel could as well be targeted.
“The second Iranian warship to pass near Sri Lanka’s territorial waters since yesterday is believed to be part of a group of three Iranian navy vessels returning from an international maritime event in India,” Al Jazeera reported from Colombo, Sri Lanka.
“The second ship contacted local authorities in Sri Lanka, indicating it is running into engine trouble and asking to call into port. That is not happening, but there is some communication, from what we’re hearing.”
Officials in the southern port city of Galle, meanwhile, made preparations on Thursday to hand over the remains of the 87 Iranian sailors killed in the torpedo attack claimed by the US military.
Authorities at the main hospital in Galle said 32 rescued Iranians were being treated under tight security provided by police and elite commandos.
The Emergency Treatment Unit was off limits to visitors and other patients as medical authorities set up a separate ward for the Iranians.
“Most of them have minor injuries, but there were a few with fractures and burns,” a nurse at the hospital was quoted as saying.
Navy spokesman Buddhika Sampath said that Sri Lankan Navy vessels were continuing their search for missing Iranian sailors.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Thursday that the US “will come to bitterly regret the precedent it has set.” It was the first time the Iranian government acknowledged the sinking of the IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean.
Araghchi made the comment on X, saying, “The US has perpetrated an atrocity at sea, 2,000 miles (3,200km) away from Iran’s shores.”
“Frigate Dena, a guest of India’s Navy carrying almost 130 sailors, was struck in international waters without warning,” he wrote. “Mark my words: The US will come to bitterly regret (the]) precedent it has set.”
General Kioumars Heydari, a commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), told state TV on Thursday that the IRGC has “decided to fight Americans wherever they are”, adding that Iran does not care about how long the war lasts.
On Thursday, the IRGC said it had hit a US tanker in the northern part of the Gulf and the vessel was on fire. The IRGC said in the statement carried by state media that in a time of war, passage through the Strait of Hormuz would be under the control of Iran.
