{"id":42428,"date":"2026-03-04T09:09:05","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T09:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=42428"},"modified":"2026-03-04T09:09:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T09:09:05","slug":"sri-lanka-rescues-30-people-on-board-distressed-iranian-ship-foreign-minister-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=42428","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka rescues 30 people on board distressed Iranian ship, foreign minister says"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The Sri Lankan military has rescued at least 30 people on board a sinking Iranian ship near Sri Lankan waters on Wednesday, the country&#8217;s foreign minister told parliament.<\/p>\n<p>The Sri Lankan navy dispatched a rescue mission after a distress call from the Iranian ship, a defence ministry spokesperson said earlier on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath said two Sri Lankan navy vessels and an aircraft were deployed for the rescue operation, but did not say what caused the Iranian warship to sink.<\/p>\n<p>Herath did not give further details but said Sri Lanka would take appropriate action.<\/p>\n<p>Read: Israel launches new strikes as Iran squeezes Strait of Hormuz<\/p>\n<p>Local media reported that the ship reported distress off the coast of Galle in the southern part of the country, and that the injured had been admitted to a hospital in Galle.<\/p>\n<p>An opposition legislator asked in parliament whether the vessel had been bombed as part of the ongoing US-Israeli attacks against Iran, but there was no immediate response from the government.<br \/>\nNavy spokesman Buddhika Sampath said their operation was in line with Sri Lanka&#8217;s maritime obligations.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We responded to the distress call under our international obligations, as this is within our Search and Rescue Area in the Indian Ocean,&#8221; Sampath told AFP.<\/p>\n<p>Local officials said the main hospital in Galle, 115 kilometres (70 miles) south of the capital, had been placed on alert to receive the evacuated sailors.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Sri Lankan military has rescued at least 30 people on board a sinking Iranian ship near Sri Lankan waters on Wednesday, the country&#8217;s foreign minister told parliament. The Sri Lankan navy dispatched a rescue mission after a distress call from the Iranian ship, a defence ministry spokesperson said earlier on Wednesday. Foreign Minister Vijitha [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}