Udisha Jayasinghe
GALLE, Sri Lanka, March 5 (Reuters) – Sri Lanka said on Thursday it was working to “protect the lives” of a second Iranian ship off its coast, a day after a U.S. submarine attacked an Iranian warship in the same area, killing 87 people.
Two government sources told Reuters the island’s security committee, which includes senior military officials, met to discuss what measures to take but did not say whether it was another warship.
“The president, defense officials and all other relevant officials are aware of the situation and we are addressing it,” Cabinet spokesperson Nalinda Jayatissa said in response to a question from the opposition leader.
“We are doing our best to protect lives,” he said, without revealing how.
Rescuers still searching for 10 missing people
Jayatissa said the ship was located near the Port of Colombo, within the country’s exclusive economic zone but outside its maritime boundaries.
He added that the first ship, the IRIS Dena, sank on Wednesday 19 nautical miles off Sri Lanka’s southern port city of Galle, and that two freezers had been dispatched to store the 87 bodies recovered from the sea.
Sri Lanka’s deputy health and mass media minister Hansaka Wijemuni told Reuters that Tehran had asked Colombo to help repatriate the bodies, adding that a timetable had not yet been set.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said the warship was attacked without warning in international waters thousands of miles from the Gulf, where U.S. and Israeli forces are attacking Iran and Tehran is retaliating with missile and drone strikes.
“The United States will deeply regret the precedent it has set,” Arachi said in a post on X, adding that the warship was a guest of the Indian Navy and was carrying nearly 130 sailors.
IRIS Dena participated in a naval exercise organized by India in the Bay of Bengal from February 18 to 25 and is currently on its way back, according to the exercise website and Sri Lankan officials.
Sri Lankan military rescuers responded to a distress call from a frigate in the early hours of Wednesday and found 32 survivors.
They said search and rescue operations would continue and 10 people were still expected to be missing.
The Indian Navy said it had also launched a search and rescue operation to “strengthen” Sri Lanka’s efforts.
This attack greatly expanded the scope of the war.
“A U.S. submarine sank an Iranian warship that was thought to be safe in international waters,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at the Pentagon. “Instead, it was torpedoed and sunk. A quiet death.”
A Pentagon video that claimed to have captured the attack showed a massive explosion blowing off the back of the ship, lifting it out of the water and causing it to begin sinking from the stern.
(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe in Galle; Jana Choukeir and Elwely Elwelly in Dubai; Additional reporting by Saurabh Sharma in New Delhi; Writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar and YP Rajesh; Editing by Saad Sayeed, Philippa Fletcher and Andrew Heavens)
