US submarine attack: Sri Lankan court orders handover of 84 Iranian sailors’ bodies to Iran's embassy

Galle Chief Magistrate Sameera Dodangoda issued the order after a request filed by police, local media outlet Daily Mirror reported.

The bodies are being kept in two mobile cold storage units at a hospital in Galle, a coastal city in southern Sri Lanka.

The sailors were among those killed after the US submarine attacked the Iranian warship IRIS Dena in waters off Sri Lanka last Wednesday. Sri Lanka’s navy launched a rescue mission following the incident.

Iran's military reported that the US attack killed 104 of the 130 sailors on board. However, Sri Lankan authorities said they recovered 84 bodies from the water and rescued 32 sailors, while 14 remain missing.

Days later, Sri Lanka also evacuated 208 crew members from a second Iranian vessel, IRIS Bushehr, after it requested assistance from Colombo.

Both vessels had been returning from the Milan Peace 2026 naval drills in India.

Sri Lanka said Monday it would grant one-month visas to the rescued Iranian sailors.

Debris and oil barrels from the sunken IRIS Dena later washed ashore along parts of Sri Lanka’s southern coastline, prompting cleanup efforts and environmental monitoring by authorities, local media reported.

Opposition politicians have criticized the government, saying that sheltering the sailors risks drawing the cash-strapped island nation into the Middle East conflict.

The government says it is covering the expenses of the stranded sailors and providing medical care on humanitarian grounds.

Regional tensions surged after the United States and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran on Feb. 28, which Tehran says killed more than 1,300 people, including Ali Khamenei, the former supreme leader, and over 150 schoolgirls.

Iran has since launched drone and missile strikes targeting Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Gulf countries hosting US military assets.

Tehran has also effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz since March 1. The narrow waterway carries about 20 million barrels of oil a day and roughly 20% of the global liquefied natural gas trade.