Sri Lankan authorities announced on Friday that they had taken control of the Iranian ship and evacuated its crew, a day after it requested an emergency docking. The vessel IRINS Bushehr requested permission to enter Sri Lankan waters on Wednesday, citing engine failure.
What Sri Lanka said
Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said on Thursday that the 208-member crew of the IRIS Bushehr will be disembarked at the port of Colombo before the vessel will be moved to the northeastern port of Trincomalee.
Amid fears of the island nation being drawn into a US-Iranian war, Dissanayake said the IRIS Bushehr may have entered Sri Lankan waters for humanitarian reasons.
“We wanted to remain neutral in dealing with the humanitarian response,” he said.
“Nobody deserves to die. Every life is precious,” the Sri Lankan president said.
The sinking of the IRIS Dena
The development came a day after the US sank an Iranian navy ship off the coast of Sri Lanka.
The Iranian frigate IRIS Dena, which left the Indian coast of Visakhapatnam nearly two weeks ago after taking part in a biennial naval exercise in Milan in 2026, was sunk in a US submarine attack off Galle, in the island’s southern coastal city. The IRIS Dena was about 40 nautical miles from Galle when it was hit.
What did the US say
According to US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, a US submarine sank an Iranian warship with a torpedo strike in international waters.
The IRIS Dena had a crew of about 180 sailors and was reportedly unarmed as it was returning from a naval exercise when it was struck by the US military.
About 87 people on board were confirmed dead, while 32 others were rescued by Sri Lankan authorities. A search and rescue operation is underway for the still missing persons.
Since the start of Operation Epic Fury on February 28, the US claims to have sunk more than 30 Iranian ships, dealing a major blow to Iran’s outnumbered navy.
“We’re up over 30 ships (sunk) now, and just in the last few hours we’ve hit an Iranian drone ship, roughly the size of a World War II aircraft carrier. And it’s burning as we speak,” Admiral Brad Cooper, head of the Central Command, which is responsible for U.S. forces in the Middle East, told a news conference Thursday.
According to him, the destruction of the Iranian Navy is the main military objective of his ongoing campaign, and the United States is not holding back in its mission to sink the entire fleet.
The US-Iran war will expand into the Indian Ocean
However, the sinking of the IRIS Dena was the first time the ongoing US-Iranian war took place in the Indian Ocean. The incident also raised fears of a war stretching beyond the Persian Gulf region and into the Indian Ocean.
In IRIS Dena, Iran said the navy ship was a ‘guest of India’.
What did India say
India has reiterated that it remains neutral in the ongoing US-Iran conflict and denied unverified claims on social media that US forces were using its ports to conduct military operations.
