More than 200 Iranian sailors stranded in Sri Lanka for over a month have returned home after the warship Iris Dena was sunk by a US submarine torpedo on 4 March, killing 104 crew members. Sri Lanka's Deputy Defence Minister Aruna Jayasekara confirmed that 32 survivors from the Iris Dena and 206 from the Irins Bushehr — an accompanying vessel that sought refuge in a Sri Lankan port after an engine malfunction — were flown out on Tuesday night. The incident, which occurred in international waters roughly 40 kilometres off Sri Lanka's southern coast as the Iris Dena returned from a military exercise hosted by India, marked a significant escalation in the ongoing US-Israeli conflict with Iran, which has since launched retaliatory strikes across the Middle East.