Sri Lanka brought more than 200 Iranian sailors ashore from the navy logistics ship IRIS Bushehr after the vessel sought assistance while anchored outside the country’s waters, the Sri Lankan navy said Friday, as regional tensions followed the earlier sinking of an Iranian warship by a U.S. submarine.
Sri Lankan navy spokesperson Cmdr. Buddhika Sampath said 204 sailors from the IRIS Bushehr were brought to Welisara Naval Base near Colombo. He said the men underwent border control procedures and medical tests, with Sri Lankan authorities finding that none had health issues. Sampath added that about 15 others were left aboard the ship with Sri Lankan naval personnel to assist because the sailors had reported a fault with the vessel.
Sampath said the Iranian sailors would interpret operational instructions, manuals and logs for Sri Lankan counterparts. He also said the ship would be taken to the port of Trincomalee in eastern Sri Lanka and remain in Sri Lankan custody until further notice.
The episode followed Sri Lanka taking custody of the Bushehr after the United States sank an Iranian warship, the IRIS Dena, off Sri Lanka’s coast Wednesday, a strike that AP described as rare since World War II in which a submarine sank a surface warship. The IRIS Dena had participated in naval exercises hosted by India before heading into international waters on its way home, according to India’s Defense Ministry, which said at least 74 countries joined the events, including the U.S. Navy for reconnaissance aircraft and maritime patrol drills.
India’s Defense Ministry said it received a distress signal from the Dena but that by the time it launched a search-and-rescue operation, Sri Lanka’s navy had already begun rescue efforts. Sri Lanka rescued 32 sailors and recovered 87 bodies, and Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said the Dena had carried “almost 130” crew.
Sri Lankan officials said their handling of the Bushehr was driven by maritime law and humanitarian obligations rather than alignment with either side in the conflict. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake told journalists late Thursday that authorities decided to take control of the IRIS Bushehr after discussions with Iranian officials and the ship’s captain following an engine failure. He said Sri Lanka had to consider “international treaties and conventions,” describing the situation as “not an ordinary situation” because it involved a request by a ship belonging to one party to enter Sri Lanka’s port.
On Friday, Dissanayake also posted on X that “No civilian should die in wars” and that Sri Lanka’s approach was that “every single life is as precious as our own.” He said Sri Lanka was guided by neutrality while seeking to uphold humanitarian principles, adding, “We have followed a very clear stance. We will not be biased to any state nor we will be submissive to any state.”
Analysts said the Bushehr case underscores how Sri Lanka’s non-alignment policy is tested in the expanding Middle East conflict. H.M.G.S. Palihakkara, a retired former foreign secretary who served as Sri Lanka’s permanent representative to the United Nations, said Sri Lanka acted responsibly and impartially, citing the distress call and Sri Lanka’s role under the law of the sea and the Hague Convention.
Palihakkara said that “as a party to the Law of Sea and The Hague Convention, [Sri Lanka] had no option but to do what it did by mounting a humanitarian operation to provide assistance to save lives and provide medical care to the affected.” He said parties to the conflict would understand Sri Lanka was not taking sides, adding, “You could not have ignored the distress call. Even the attacking powers cannot leave shipwrecked sailors dying. That is the law.”
Katsuya Yamamoto, director of the Strategy and Deterrence Program at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in Tokyo, said Sri Lanka is considered a neutral state and that the Bushehr can enter a Sri Lankan port if permission is granted by the government. He said that once the vessel is docked, it falls under Iranian jurisdiction, which could leave Sri Lankan authorities without grounds to inspect it unless Colombo decides to align with the U.S.
Separately, the UN resident coordinator in Sri Lanka, Marc-André Franche, welcomed Sri Lanka’s intervention on X, saying it reflected a commitment to “multilateralism, maintaining neutrality, and underscoring its dedication to peace.”
The earlier sinking of the IRIS Dena also drew attention from Australia, which confirmed three Australians were aboard the submarine that sank the ship. Australia’s government said the Australians were participating in a trilateral U.S., Australian and British training program under AUKUS. Neil James, executive director of the Australian Defense Association policy think tank, said it was “reasonably rare” for Australians embedded with another country’s military to go to war against a country such as Iran that Australia was not at war with, and he said an Australian would not have fired the torpedo that sank the Iranian ship.