COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The United States is pressing Sri Lanka not to send home survivors from the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena or the crew of the auxiliary ship IRIS Booshehr after a U.S. submarine sank the Dena off the island’s southern coast, according to a Reuters report on a State Department cable. The request pushes Iranian crew repatriation to the center of the fallout from an attack in which Sri Lankan authorities said 87 bodies were recovered and 32 sailors were rescued, March 6.
Why Iranian crew repatriation became the next flashpoint
The cable, as described by Reuters, said U.S. diplomats in Colombo told Sri Lankan officials that neither the 32 Dena survivors nor the Booshehr crew should be repatriated to Iran, and that authorities should limit Tehran’s ability to use the episode for propaganda. The dispute comes days after the March 4 sinking of the IRIS Dena, which widened the U.S.-Iran conflict into the Indian Ocean after the frigate was hit about 19 nautical miles off Galle while returning from an India-hosted naval exercise.
For Sri Lanka, the issue is no longer only rescue and recovery. Colombo has already taken control of the Booshehr after the vessel reported engine problems, and Reuters later reported that more than 200 crew members were moved to a navy camp while a smaller group stayed aboard to help bring the ship to harbor. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said Sri Lanka had a humanitarian responsibility to assist.
Sri Lanka’s dilemma now goes beyond the survivors
Tehran has also asked Colombo for help repatriating the bodies recovered from the Dena, but Sri Lankan officials have not publicly set a timeline for returning either the dead or the surviving crew. That leaves the island facing two competing demands: Iran wants its personnel back, while the U.S. cable cited by Reuters says Washington wants to curb Tehran’s ability to turn the rescued sailors into a political message.
The Booshehr is expected to remain in Sri Lankan custody for the duration of the conflict, according to the cable cited by Reuters. That means the repatriation question may outlast the immediate rescue phase and become a test of how a neutral state handles foreign military personnel pulled from a widening war at sea.
The sinking still carries legal and political risk
Iran says the Dena was on a ceremonial return leg and was unarmed when it was hit. But legal experts interviewed by The Associated Press said the strike itself does not appear to violate the law of armed conflict simply because the ship was not firing at the time; the harder question is whether the United States took all feasible steps to help survivors after the torpedo hit.
That distinction matters because the surviving sailors may help shape public accounts of warning, rescue efforts and the treatment of Iranian personnel after the attack. It also explains why Iranian crew repatriation has become more than a consular issue: the people Sri Lanka is holding are now part of the political story of the sinking itself.
The IRIS Dena had already been a pressure point
This is not the first time the ship has drawn outside diplomatic pressure. In February 2023, Reuters reported that Brazil delayed a planned Rio de Janeiro port call by IRIS Dena and IRIS Makran after behind-the-scenes U.S. objections. Later that month, Reuters reported that Brazil still allowed the two Iranian warships to dock once President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s Washington trip was over, showing that third countries have been pulled into disputes over Iranian naval access before.
That history makes the current standoff look less like a one-off humanitarian dispute and more like the latest chapter in a longer contest over how other states handle Iranian naval personnel and ships. Sri Lanka managed the rescue. The harder question now is how, and when, Iranian crew repatriation happens.
