Sri Lanka formally interned the IRIS Bushehr (A-422) following negotiations between the Sri Lankan and Iranian foreign ministries. President Dissanayake confirmed the arrangement. 208 crew members — 53 officers, 84 cadet officers, 48 senior sailors, and 21 sailors — were brought ashore by the Sri Lanka Navy and transported to the naval base at Trincomalee. Under the 1907 Hague Convention XIII on the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers in Naval War, both the vessel and its personnel must remain in Sri Lankan custody for the duration of the conflict.
The Bushehr had been approaching Sri Lankan waters reporting engine trouble after her sister ship IRIS Dena was torpedoed and sunk by a US submarine approximately 40 nautical miles south of Galle on 3 March — the first American torpedo kill since 1945 . At least 80 crew died on the Dena; 32 critically wounded survivors were rescued by Sri Lankan vessels . The Bushehr's captain, knowing what had happened to the Dena in the same waters, faced two options: continue into open ocean where a US submarine had just demonstrated lethal capability, or seek refuge in the nearest neutral port. The 84 cadet officers aboard — outnumbering the 53 commissioned officers — indicate the Bushehr was operating as a training vessel. Both ships had participated in India's International Fleet Review 2026 and Exercise MILAN at Visakhapatnam days before the war started and were transiting home when the conflict began.
Internment under Hague XIII is rare in modern warfare. The most recent large-scale precedents date to the Second World War, when neutral states including Portugal, Ireland, and Sweden held belligerent vessels and personnel for the conflict's duration. The Convention's requirements are clear — Sri Lanka must employ the means at its disposal to prevent the vessel and crew from rejoining the fight — but the politics are less so. Colombo has spent decades balancing between the powers competing for Indian Ocean influence: China holds a 99-year lease on Hambantota port, India claims a traditional security role in the region, and the United States maintains naval partnerships across the littoral. The internment compels Sri Lanka to take a visible position. Washington, which sank the Bushehr's sister ship, and Tehran, whose sailors Sri Lanka now holds, will both apply pressure over enforcement conditions. India, already facing questions about whether its rules for the Indian Ocean apply to all navies equally , is watching from the closest vantage point.
