India Bars Seafarers From Hormuz Voyages After Attacks

India has directed ship owners, ship managers and recruitment agencies to stop deploying the country’s seafarers on vessels going through the Strait of Hormuz following an upsurge in attacks.

Among precautions, there should be no deployment of Indian crew members on vessels undertaking voyages through the waterway “until further orders,” the Directorate General of Shipping said in a post on X late Wednesday.

A flareup in hostilities between Iran and the US has seen a spate of strikes on ships in and around the waterway in recent days, including an attack that killed an Indian seafarer. The International Maritime Organization has warned the chokepoint remains too dangerous for commercial vessels at present.

Incidents “over the past few days have increased the risks faced by seafarers and commercial ships operating in the conflict-affected area significantly,” the directorate said in a statement attached to the post.

There are more than 310,000 Indian seafarers on merchant ships, making the country the second-largest supplier of sailors, according to an estimate from BIMCO, a trade association, and the International Chamber of Shipping.

“This can’t be enforced, as most of the ships are foreign-owned and foreign-flagged and India has no jurisdiction,” said Manoj Yadav, general secretary of the Forward Seamen’s Union of India. There are thousands of Indian seafarers on vessels in the war zone, “and they can’t just be offloaded,” he added.

In June, the government had asked shipping companies and recruitment agencies to restrict the deployment of Indian seafarers in conflict areas. The shipping ministry didn’t immediately reply to queries on how the latest order would be enforced and what penalties, if any, could be imposed.

India’s move echoes an earlier curb by the top provider of seafarers, the Philippines, which asked agencies to stop sending its nationals to the Persian Gulf, exacerbating a staff shortage. Manila later eased that restriction.

There should be “heightened security vigilance in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and adjoining waters,” with continuous monitoring of navigational warnings and security advisories, the directorate said in the post.

The Strait of Hormuz connects the Persian Gulf to global markets, and it used to carry about a fifth of daily global oil supply in peacetime. Control of the waterway is being contested by Tehran and Washington.

Photograph: Indian sailors on a cargo vessel at Qaboos Port in Muscat, Oman; photo credit: Elke Scholiers/Getty Images Europe

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