Second Iranian ship heading to Sri Lanka after submarine attack

A second Iranian warship was heading towards Sri Lanka’s territorial waters Thursday, a day after a US submarine destroyed an Iranian frigate, killing at least 84 sailors, a minister told parliament.

Media minister Nalinda Jayatissa said the second Iranian warship was just outside Sri Lankan waters, but gave no further details.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake was meeting top officials Thursday to discuss a response to an Iranian request to enter the safety of the island’s waters, official sources said.

They said the vessel was carrying more than 100 crew and feared they too could be targeted the same way a sister vessel was sunk by a US submarine just off Sri Lanka’s southern coast on Wednesday.

The sinking of IRIS Dena came as the war sparked by a joint US-Israel attack on Iran continued to spread across the Middle East and beyond.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Thursday denounced the US attack and warned Washington it would “bitterly regret” the precedent it has set.

“The US has perpetrated an atrocity at sea, 2,000 miles 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 posted on X.

“Mark my words: The US will come to bitterly regret precedent it has set.”

Sri Lankan authorities have begun an inquest into the deaths of the sailors at the southern port city of Galle while the chief magistrate Sameera Dodangoda has ordered autopsies.

The hospital revised the toll to 84 after issuing a figure of 87 on Wednesday.

The bodies, some of them mutilated, were brought there in trucks after the navy recovered them from deep waters.

The morgue at Galle could handle about 25 bodies at a time and the authorities were rushing freezer shipping containers to preserve the remains until legal formalities were completed.

Navy spokesman Buddhika Sampath said they were continuing the search for missing sailors. Sri Lanka earlier said that there were 180 people aboard when it was struck by a US torpedo.

– Tight protection –

Medical staff at the main hospital in Galle said 32 rescued Iranians were still being treated under tight security provided by police and elite commandos.

The Emergency Treatment Unit was off limits to visitors and other patients, with the medical authorities setting 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 said, without giving her name.

An Iranian embassy official, who was at the hospital, refused to comment.

The frigate had issued a distress call at dawn on Wednesday but had completely sunk by the time a Sri Lankan rescue ship reached the area.

The attack was about an hour away from the main naval base in Galle.

The warship was returning after attending a military exercise in India’s eastern port of Visakhapatnam.

Sri Lanka has remained neutral and has repeatedly urged dialogue to resolve the conflict in the Middle East.

Iran is a key buyer of Sri Lankan tea, the country’s main export commodity.

AFP

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