Ceremony to mark 1st anniversary of sunken ship’s martyrs held

The ceremony commemorating the first anniversary of the incident of the Sanchi ship was held Thursday afternoon with the presence of families of sailors and a group of officials at the Husseinieh Ershad in Tehran, AVA Diplomatic reports.

In this ceremony, a number of foreign ambassadors and Charge d’affaires, along with representatives from China, accompanied by its ambassador, as well as South Korea’s ambassador to Tehran participated.

On January 6, 2018, a tanker ship owned by Iran’s National Tanker Company known as Sanchi, which was headed to South Korea hit the Chinese ship 158 miles east of China.

In the wake of the incident, 32 crews were killed, with three bodies returned to the country, while 29 others were taken to the sea.

Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare of Iran said in the ceremony that $1.217 million has been paid to the families of the martyrs of the Sanchi Ship accident.

Addressing ceremony held in commemoration of Sanchi ship martyrs on the first anniversary of their death, Mohammad Shariatmadari added, “This amount has been paid to families who have filed legal proceedings concerning the succession of inheritance”.

Also Director of the Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran says the proceedings into Sanchi incident and the priority in the case are not finding the guilty but detecting the root causes and taking lessons from it.

Addressing ceremonies, marking the first anniversary of Sanchi incident, Mohammad Rastad said, ‘The most important action taken by the Ports and Maritime Organization in response to the Sanchi ship incident was assessment of the causes and factors causing the accident and this was made possible through forming a committee to investigate the case in accordance with the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea.”

Director of National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) Nasrallah Sardashty said the case of accident between Iranian and Chinese ships (Sanchi disaster) will be examined in the next five months and its trial is being held in Hong Kong or China.