help after a deadly torpedo strike on another of Iran's ships. The crew were brought ashore Thursday 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 at least 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 the Sri Lanka Navy and were being treated at a hospital in the southern port city of Galle. 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 on Wednesday said the strike was the first by an American submarine since World War II. Sri Lanka not only granted permission for the second Iranian vessel, IRIS Bushehr, to enter its territorial waters on Thursday, but also evacuated its crew to a naval facility just outside Colombo. "All our actions are aimed at saving lives and ensuring that humanity prevails," Dissanayake said. (Bssnews)