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The head of the Missing-in-Action Search Committee of Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff has warned about the poor physical condition of Iranian fighter pilots held in Qatar, urging the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to dispatch an air ambulance to transfer them home.
“The place where the captive pilots are being held on the water does not provide suitable conditions for maintaining their health,” Brig. Gen. Mohammad Bagherzadeh warned on Saturday.
Bagherzadeh stressed that Qatar must move the Iranian captives to land and transfer them to a fully equipped hospital as soon as possible.
He welcomed Doha’s decision to receive a team of Iranian experts and urged local authorities to cooperate in speeding up efforts to address the captives’ condition.
The case stems from a March 2 mission, when two Iranian Air Force Su-24 aircraft carried out operations against Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar amid the United States-Israeli war on the Islamic Republic. The air base is a key hub for American forces in the region.
Qatar denied last week that it was holding Iranian pilots, saying it had contacted Iran to coordinate the handover of the remains of one pilot and had invited Tehran to review details of its search and rescue operations, but had received no response.
Bagherzadeh previously addressed the situation in a March 16 letter to ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric, urging the organization to investigate the pilots’ fate and establish direct contact with them.
He identified the surviving pilots as Javad Salehi, Abdolmajid Dashtian, and Emran Behrouzian. He confirmed that a fourth aviator, Majid Kazemi, was killed during the operation, and his remains have since been returned to Iran.
“The Missing-in-Action Search Committee of the Armed Forces General Staff expresses its grave concern over the condition of the Iranian pilots held in Qatar,” Bagherzadeh wrote, urging the ICRC to urgently interview them and inform Tehran of their health and whereabouts.
Earlier this week, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei reiterated that Tehran is utilizing all diplomatic and humanitarian channels to determine the pilots’ fate, noting that the Iranian embassy has monitored the case since its early stages.
“As long as their status remains unclear, it is assumed that they have been captured, and we are using all available capacities to determine the status of the pilots,” Baghaei said.
The fate of the three pilots could spark a serious crisis between Iran and Qatar, especially as Doha continues to deny holding them.
The two neighboring countries enjoyed excellent relations before the start of the war on the Islamic Republic. Iranian retaliatory strikes hit Qatar, causing unprecedented tensions.
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