Sri Lanka on Wednesday sent home more than 200 Iranian sailors who had been stranded on the island for over a month after a US torpedo attack sank one of their ships and damaged another. Deputy Defence Minister Aruna Jayasekara said 32 sailors rescued from the Iris Dena and 206 from the Irins Bushehr had left the country after being flown out on Tuesday night.
The Iris Dena sank on 4 March about 40km from Sri Lanka's southern coastline after it was hit by a torpedo from a US submarine, killing 104 sailors. The ship had been returning from a military exercise hosted by India when it was attacked, and video released by the US Department of Defense showed the vessel being struck, its stern rising before it exploded.
The repatriation closes a tense chapter for Colombo, which had to manage the fallout from two Iranian naval vessels caught in separate trouble at sea. On March 5, Sri Lanka took control of the Irins Bushehr after it requested to dock at one of the country's ports because one of its engines malfunctioned. The stranded sailors were given 30-day entry visas and housed in navy and air force camps while the government worked through the diplomatic and security questions around their departure.
The wider backdrop made the episode harder to ignore. The sinking happened in international waters just days into the current US-Israeli war with Iran, and Iran later launched retaliatory strikes across the Middle East targeting Gulf countries allied with the US. Bodies of 84 Iranian sailors killed in the Iris Dena attack were recovered and later repatriated in a chartered plane arranged by Iran.
About 15 Iranian sailors will remain in Sri Lanka to operate the Irins Bushehr, which is anchored off Trincomalee in the island's northeast. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said Sri Lanka would “never hesitate to protect humanity,” adding that the country had acted to safeguard its neutrality while demonstrating its humanitarian values and protecting lives. Sri Lanka has kept a long-standing policy of non-alignment since 1948, and the handling of the sailors showed how hard it is for the country to balance that stance with strong ties to both Iran and the United States.
