What prompted Iranian Armed Forces General Staff official Mohammad Baqerzadeh to urge Qatar to move detained Iranian pilots from an allegedly unsuitable offshore location to a hospital on land and ask the International Committee of the Red Cross to send an air ambulance, what are

Baqerzadeh’s appeal was prompted by Iran’s assertion that the three men are being held “on water” in poor physical condition, rather than in a suitable medical facility. He asked Qatar to transfer them to a land hospital and asked the ICRC to dispatch an air ambulance—claims Qatar has not accepted because it denies holding any surviving pilots.

• Iran’s account: Tehran says two Su-24s were downed during the March 2 attack on Al-Udeid. On August 15, Baqerzadeh identified Javad Salehi, Abdolmajid Dashtian and Omran Behraveshian as having ejected, been captured alive and held incommunicado for about six months; he said a fourth crewman, Majid Kazemi, was killed and his body returned.

• Qatar’s account: Doha calls the detention allegation baseless. It says the aircraft violated Qatari airspace and sovereignty, so it took defensive measures in accordance with international law; its search-and-rescue operation recovered the remains of one pilot, which it says were handed to an Iranian delegation in April. Qatar’s position is that no pilots survived.

• Why the impasse persists: Iran says Qatar has obstructed or delayed entry by a fact-finding team, including an Iranian air-force technical delegation, to establish the men’s fate. Qatar counters that it invited Iranian experts in April to inspect the search-and-rescue findings, but Tehran did not respond; Qatari officials have characterized an Iranian request involving the IRGC as a publicity maneuver.

• Current Iranian policy: Despite Qatar’s categorical denial, Iran’s Foreign Ministry says it will regard the three as prisoners in Qatar until Doha provides a satisfactory clarification of their fate, while pursuing bilateral, multilateral and legal channels.

The core facts—whether three men survived, are detained, and are ill—remain unverified publicly because the parties’ accounts are mutually exclusive and no jointly accepted investigation has occurred.