Sri Lanka began a day offloading 208 crew members from a second Iranian ship after 87 people were killed and several others still missing following a US submarine attack on an Iranian warship in the same region.
“After detailed discussions with all parties, Sri Lanka has decided to assist the Iranian vessel,” Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake told reporters at a news conference in Colombo, Reuters reported.
The crew members offloaded from the ship, which is located near Colombo port, included 53 civil servants, 84 cadets, 48 senior sailors and 23 sailors, Dissanayake said.
The Iranian warship IRIS Dena is seen in the Bay of Bengal. (AP photo)
The Iranian ship, the IRIS Dena, was sunk off the coast of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean on Wednesday. Officials there have sent two freezers to store 87 bodies recovered at sea.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the ship was “effectively neutralized” during a Navy “quick strike” using a single Mark 48 torpedo. He added that the US Navy had “achieved immediate effect by sending the warship to the bottom of the sea”.
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An injured Iranian sailor is moved on a stretcher to the Galle National Hospital, where the sailors are being treated, following a submarine attack on the Iranian military ship IRIS Dena, off the coast of Sri Lanka, in Galle, Sri Lanka, March 5, 2026. (Reuters/Thilina Kaluthotage)
Iran claims the ship was sunk without warning in international waters.
“The US will bitterly regret the precedent it has set,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in a message on X.
Iran has asked Sri Lanka to help repatriate the bodies.
Sri Lankan officials said the Dena was on its way home after participating in a naval exercise organized by India in the Bay of Bengal from February 18 to 25.
Health workers unload the bodies of Iranian sailors from a vehicle killed when their warship IRIS Dena sank outside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters, in Galle, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)
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Search and rescue operations would continue for an estimated 10 people still missing, they said.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that U.S. forces had sunk a second Iranian ship off the coast of Sri Lanka.
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