COLOMBO: Iranian sailors rescued by Sri Lanka following a US submarine attack have been sent back home, officials said on Wednesday.
The Sri Lanka Navy rescued 32 Iranian personnel aboard the IRIS Dena warship, which was hit without warning and sunk by an American submarine off Galle, in the Sri Lankan exclusive economic zone on March 4 — days after the beginning of US-Israeli attacks on Iran.
More than 100 sailors were killed.
The vessel was returning home after taking part in the International Fleet Review 2026 naval exercise hosted by India.
“We rescued them as per the provisions given in the Rescue Convention, and we swiftly admitted them to the Karapitiya Hospital for medical attention,” Sri Lanka Navy spokesman, Commander Buddhika Sampath, told Arab News.
“We rescued 32 in the initial stage. And we recovered 84 dead bodies.”
Following the incident, another Iranian ship, IRINS Bushehr, which was also returning from India, from MILAN 2026 drills, received permission to enter port in Sri Lanka and was docked in Trincomalee in Sri Lanka’s northeast.
Sampath said that 206 Iranian personnel were disembarked from the ship.
Sri Lanka’s Deputy Defense Minister Aruna Jayasekara told Reuters and AFP that sailors from both groups returned to Iran on a chartered aircraft on Tuesday evening.
“A few sailors from the IRIS Bushehr are staying back to operate the vessel,” he said.
The Sri Lankan government granted the stranded sailors 30-day entry visas and accommodated them in navy and air force camps. Survivors from Dena stayed at the Sri Lanka Air Force’s station in Koggala, near Galle, while those from Bushehr stayed in Welisara, a major naval base near Colombo.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said that Sri Lanka provided the protection on humanitarian grounds.
“This is not military support for any party,” he said in a statement.
“Our actions are guided by the international agreements we have signed, including the 1907 Hague Convention and conventions relating to maritime activities and resources.”
The torpedoing of the Dena by the USS Charlotte in Sri Lankan waters was the first such attack by a US Navy submarine since the Second World War, setting a 21st-century precedent for blue water naval warfare.
