COLOMBO: Sri Lanka denounced the toll of the Mideast fighting, as the nation opened its arms on Thursday to over 200 Iranian sailors who sought help after a deadly torpedo strike on another of Iran’s ships.

The crew were brought ashore and were being accommodated at a military camp near the capital Colombo and their ship, IRIS Bushehr, was under Sri Lankan control.

The vessel reported engine trouble and sought port entry after another Iranian vessel, IRIS Dena, was hit by a US torpedo off Sri Lanka’s southern coast on Wednesday.

Washington later announced it carried out the attack, which killed 84 Iranian sailors aboard and left 64 more missing.

“Our approach is that every life is as precious as our own,” Sri Lanka’s President Anura Kumara Dissanayake wrote on X, and urged peace after the Israeli-US campaign led to Iranian retaliatory strikes.

Thirty-two sailors were rescued by Sri Lanka’s navy and were being treated at a hospital in the southern port city of Galle.

Iranian warship docks at Kochi

An Iranian warship has docked in the southwest Indian port of Kochi, a government source in New Delhi said on Friday, after a US submarine sank another Iranian frigate.

“The IRIS Lavan docked at Kochi on March 4. In this context, its crew of 183 are currently accommodated at naval facilities in Kochi,” the source said.

Like the IRIS Dena, the Iranian warship sunk by a US submarine on Wednesday off the coast of Sri Lanka, IRIS Lavan had also been part of a naval fleet review off India’s Visakhapatnam port.

“Days before the IRIS Dena incident south of Sri Lanka, India was approached by Iran to take in the Iranian Ship IRIS Lavan,” the source said.

“This request was received on Feb 28, indicating that a docking at Kochi was urgent as the vessel had developed technical issues,” the source added.

“Approval was accorded for the docking on March 1.”

On Thursday, the crew from Iranian IRIS Bushehr were brought ashore in Sri Lanka, and the crew were being accommodated at a military camp near the capital Colombo.

Wednesday’s attack was the first military strike far outside the Middle East since the United States and Israel launched their war on Iran.

The US defence secretary said the strike was the first by a torpedo fired by an American submarine since World War II.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2026