19 Iranian Vessels Run Out of Food and Fuel off Sri Lanka as US Secondary Sanctions Trap Small South Asian Nation in Humanitarian Dilemma

19 Iranian vessels have been anchored for months in international waters 24 nautical miles off the coast of Sri Lanka, with food, water and fuel on board steadily running out. On October 9, the Sri Lankan government made its position explicit: there are no immediate plans to provide assistance.

Thushara Rodrigo, spokesperson for Sri Lanka's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told The Hindu that the government was prioritizing "national interests" and that all companies involved in supplying the vessels were fully aware of the potential consequences of US secondary sanctions. He also clarified that, to date, the Sri Lankan side had not received any formal warning from the United States to the effect that "aid would be punished." The Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted that the Iranian Embassy in Sri Lanka had indicated it had no details to disclose on the matter.

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath, in a previous interview with the local Sunday Times, revealed that the vessels were Iranian oil tankers that had become stranded off Sri Lanka since the United States reimposed a naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, unable to return to their home ports. The blockade has left several dozen Iranian ships adrift at sea, unable to advance or retreat.

Colombo's posture is one held down by an invisible hand. Sri Lanka is slowly recovering from an economic crisis that nearly bankrupted the country just a few years ago, and both the United States and Iran are important trading partners; the United States played a critical role in helping Sri Lanka secure an International Monetary Fund bailout, and that financial umbilical cord makes any deviation from the American sanctions framework prohibitively costly. Dayan Jayatilleka, a Sri Lankan international affairs analyst, put it bluntly: "It is clear that we are not refusing assistance willingly, but rather have reason to exercise caution and restraint. What we can do is comply with international humanitarian law." He stressed that the vessels were not warships but commercial tankers that had previously carried oil from Iran to China, adding: "Once these vessels enter our waters due to being attacked, we would bear a moral responsibility to rescue them immediately."

According to The Hindu, the current impasse comes on the heels of a deadly incident some seven months earlier: a US Navy torpedo sank the Iranian Navy's IRIS Dena as it was returning home, killing 87 sailors. The IRIS Dena had at the time been on its way back after participating in joint exercises with the Indian Navy. Another Iranian vessel had entered a Sri Lankan port due to reported technical problems with its crew, and some of the injured sailors had received treatment at Sri Lankan hospitals, with the rescued crew subsequently all safely repatriated to Iran, evidence that Sri Lanka has not been entirely inactive on the humanitarian front.

Today's refusal, however, carries no humanitarian exemption. The military blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the secondary sanctions mechanism, which can be triggered at any moment without prior warning, together restructure an asymmetric architecture of coercion: a country that has only just clawed its way back from the brink of bankruptcy is being forced into a fatal choice between discharging its basic humanitarian obligations and preserving its own economic survival.

The real leverage lies in American hands. The identities of local supplying companies, Sri Lanka's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and even the country's role as an international trading partner are all destined to carry unequal weight in this contest. Sri Lanka's silence is, rather than indifference, obedience demonstrated only after it has learned to read the subtext.