 "Sri Lanka Navy personnel assist Iranian sailors during a rescue operation after responding to a distress call from their vessel, the Iranian military ship, IRIS Dena, while at sea within Sri Lanka’s maritime search and rescue region, in Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka, March 4, 2026. Reuters File")
The United States is urging Sri Lanka not to repatriate survivors from the Iranian warship it sank this week, as well as the crew of another Iranian vessel currently in Sri Lankan custody, according to a Reuters report, citing an internal State Department cable.
A US submarine struck the IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean on Wednesday, about 19 nautical miles off the southern port city of Galle, killing dozens of sailors and significantly expanding Washington’s operations against the Iranian navy.
The internal State Department cable dated March 6, and not previously reported, said Jayne Howell, the charge d’affaires at the US embassy in Colombo, urged Sri Lankan authorities not to repatriate either the crew of the IRIS Booshehr or the 32 survivors from the IRIS Dena to Iran.
The cable said “Sri Lankan authorities should minimise Iranian attempts to use the detainees for propaganda.”
It added that Howell told Israel’s ambassador to India and Sri Lanka that there were no plans to send the crew back to Iran.
According to the cable, the envoy asked whether there had been any engagement with the sailors to encourage “defection.”
On Wednesday, Sri Lanka’s deputy minister for health and mass media, Hansaka Wijemuni, told Reuters that Tehran had requested Colombo’s help in repatriating the bodies of those killed aboard the IRIS Dena, though no timeframe has been set.
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View AllThe Dena, which had participated in naval exercises organised by India in the Bay of Bengal last month, was returning to Iran when it was struck by a US torpedo.
A US official, speaking anonymously, told Reuters the vessel was armed and no warning was given before the strike.
On Thursday, Sri Lanka began offloading 208 crew members from a second Iranian vessel, the naval auxiliary ship IRIS Booshehr, stranded in Sri Lanka’s exclusive economic zone but outside territorial waters.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said the island had a “humanitarian responsibility” to accommodate the crew.
The torpedoing of the Dena — described by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth as a “quiet death”— marked the first such US action since World War II and underscored the Iran conflict’s expanding geographic reach.
According to a US State Department cable, the Booshehr will remain in Sri Lankan custody for the duration of the conflict.
On Friday, authorities escorted the vessel to an eastern harbor and moved most of its crew to a naval camp near Colombo.
With inputs from agencies