About 80 bodies have been recovered so far from the Iranian naval ship IRIS Dena, which sank off the coast of Sri Lanka following an attack by a U.S. military submarine, Sri Lanka’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Arun Hemachandra told Ada Derana.
He stated that the Sri Lanka Navy received a distress call from the vessel in the early hours of the morning and subsequently rescued 32 individuals.
Two of those rescued are reported to be in critical condition, and he expressed hope for their recovery.
According to the Deputy Minister, the vessel had been traveling from Visakhapatnam Port in India, to Iran at the time of the incident.
He further noted that reports concerning the ship had emerged when it was departing from Visakhapatnam Port.
Addressing the Parliament, the Minister of Foreign Affairs had indicated that available information suggests there were more than 180 persons on board the vessel. Accordingly, Hemachandra confirmed that this figure is accurate.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth today confirmed that the US sank “an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters” in the Indian Ocean.
“Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo,” he says.
Hegseth did not name the Iranian ship that was attacked.
But earlier the Sri Lankan navy reported the IRIS Dena went down in the Indian Ocean, with around 180 people believed to be on board.
Sri Lanka Navy had earlier confirmed that it rescued 32 people after it received a distress call from Iranian navy ship “IRIS Dena” early this morning. They have been admitted to the Galle National Hospital.
Speaking at a special press briefing today (04), the Navy Media Spokesperson Commander Buddhika Sampath stated that the primary focus of the operation was to save lives.
He also says that according to the documentation of the ship 180 people are believed to have been on board, although the exact number of missing is unknown.
The spokesman says at the time of launching the rescue operations they did not see the vessel but saw oil patches on the water and floating life rafts.
--With Agencies Inputs
