Sri Lanka just found itself uncomfortably close to the latest flashpoint between the US and Iran, and it's trying hard not to pick a side. A day after a US submarine torpedoed the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena off of Sri Lanka's southern coast, the nation allowed another Iranian warship, the IRINS Bushehr, to dock at the port of Trincomalee after it reported engine trouble, reports the BBC. More than 200 crew members have been evacuated from the vessel and will be taken to the city of Colombo.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake framed the move as a strictly humanitarian and neutral act, saying Sri Lanka would "never hesitate to protect humanity" and stressing its nonaligned stance. "We have to understand that this is not an ordinary situation," he said late Thursday, per the AP. "Our seas and skies can't be used by another nation for their own gain or to harm another nation," he added, per the New York Times, which notes that Sri Lanka and Iran "have solid political and economic ties."
The IRIS Dena, which had been part of a multinational naval exercise, was sunk about 44 nautical miles from Sri Lanka, killing at least 87, with 32 survivors now hospitalized and search efforts ongoing for the missing. Iran's foreign minister condemned the US strike as an "atrocity at sea," and that the US would come to "bitterly regret" the attack, while US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed it as the first torpedo sinking of an enemy ship since World War II—one of roughly 20 Iranian naval losses since joint US-Israeli strikes began.
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