‘We don’t want to die’: plight of sailors stranded on ships in the Strait of Hormuz

The ceasefire raised hopes of escape but thousands of seamen, some hungry and unpaid, remain stuck in floating ‘prisons’

- Ruth Michaelson

A vessel in the Gulf off the coast of Sharjah. More than 1,200 tankers have been left bobbing with motors.

The first desperate message arrived late one night in early March as missiles flew across the Gulf. "My brother is a seaman on a ship called the Liana off the coast of Iran," it read. "He is one of three Indian sailors on board, they need to sign off and get home. Please help them." The Liana, a 3,000-tonne ship built to transport limestone, was moored in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz.

Drones and missiles flew overhead, terrifying the crew of six Iranians, three Indian sailors and three from Myanmar; those who could flee were looking for an escape route.

Mohamed Arrachedi, a lawyer with the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), spotted the text among hundreds flooding his inbox. “Sure, brother,” he wrote back. “Give me the details.” Arrachedi got to work but was stonewalled. The ship’s Iranian owners, its Cameroonian flag carrier and the port authorities in Iran ignored his messages. The three Indian sailors were stuck on board.

The Liana stayed in the port for weeks as US and Israeli bombs pummelled Iran, while Tehran returned fire across the Gulf. Iran declared the strait closed, and the Liana joined more than 1,200 tankers and hulking container ships left bobbing in its waters as the global economy reeled. For seven weeks, the waterway along which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas is transported has emptied, while hundreds of ships sit at anchor in nearby ports.

An oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman was targeted by an Iranian kamikaze drone boat last month, days after an Iranian drone hit a fuel tanker in the strait; another drone attack targeted a tanker laden with crude oil in a Dubai port, setting it ablaze. Ten sailors were killed in the first month of the war and eight more injured, according to the United Nations.