Sri Lanka has rushed more than 200 Iranian sailors off the damaged warship IRIS Bushehr, after what officials describe as a “ᴅᴇᴀᴅly strike at sea” turned the already‑tense internment of the vessel into a full‑blown crisis in the Indian Ocean.

According to Colombo, the Bushehr—already under Sri Lankan control after limping into port following the earlier sinking of sister ship IRIS Dena—was struck just outside Sri Lankan territorial waters by an unidentified munition late Tuesday, killing and injuring crew and sending shrapnel scything through its upper decks. The ship managed to radio distress before tugs hauled it back toward harbour.

Emergency teams in Galle and Colombo treated waves of oil‑soaked, dazed sailors through the night, as armoured buses whisked survivors to secure facilities ashore. Sri Lanka’s president announced that all 200‑plus Iranians would be “evacuated from the combat environment and placed under our humanitarian protection,” pointedly declining to blame the United States even as Iranian media accused a US submarine of a second “torpedo ambush.”

Caught between Washington and Tehran, Colombo is scrambling to project strict neutrality—citing the laws of the sea while quietly reinforcing port security and placing its small navy on high alert. But with an attacked Iranian frigate now effectively interned, its crew evacuated and two great powers trading accusations off Sri Lanka’s coast, one thing is clear: the US–Iran war is no longer a distant conflict. It has arrived on the shores of a country that never wanted to be part of it.