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Sri Lanka has confirmed it has offloaded the crew of another Iranian naval vessel after the United States sank an Iranian warship off its coast.

Getting into it: In a statement, Sri Lanka’s president said the country’s navy evacuated 208 sailors from the Iranian support ship IRIS Bushehr after the vessel reported engine trouble while sailing near Sri Lankan waters. Authorities transferred the crew ashore before taking control of the ship, which officials said would be moved away from busy commercial routes. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said the move was purely humanitarian, stressing that Sri Lanka “is not taking sides in this conflict” but was acting to save lives. The evacuated sailors are being held at a naval facility near Colombo while the vessel itself is expected to be moved to the eastern port of Trincomalee.

The incident comes a day after a US submarine sank the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena in international waters off Sri Lanka, the first time a submarine has sunk a ship since World War II. Sri Lanka’s navy responded to the distress call after the vessel was hit and launched a search-and-rescue operation, recovering at least 87 bodies and rescuing 32 sailors from the water.

The navy has continued searching for missing sailors with assistance from regional partners, including India, which deployed ships and aircraft to support the humanitarian mission.

This all comes as the Iranian military has vowed retaliation for the destruction of its navy, with a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps saying that they will “fight Americans wherever they are.”