Nearly 10 weeks have passed since Indian seafarer Anish found himself confined to a docked vessel in an Iranian port, a random twist of fate that turned him into an unintended eyewitness to the escalating open conflict between Iran and the United States. Arriving just days before former U.S. President Donald Trump launched Operation Epic Fury on February 28, Anish and his crew have been trapped in the high-risk waters of the Strait of Hormuz ever since.
“We experience everything here firsthand: the war, the flying rockets,” Anish shared, speaking under a pseudonym to protect his safety. “Our minds are completely frayed by the constant uncertainty.”
While a small number of his fellow crew members managed to coordinate an overland escape back to their home countries via the 44-kilometer land border between Iran and Armenia, hundreds like Anish remain stranded. The biggest barrier holding them back is unpaid wages: issues with corrupt Indian intermediaries that manage their salaries, paired with Iranian officials refusing to release the necessary funds for border crossing, have left them with no means to leave.
Anish survives on simple, repetitive meals of potatoes, onions, tomatoes and flatbread. He has received reports that other stranded vessels in the area are already running critically low on food and clean drinking water.
Anish’s ordeal is far from an isolated case. International maritime organizations estimate that roughly 20,000 seafarers have been trapped globally since Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian territory. Before the outbreak of active conflict, the strategic waterway was one of the world’s most critical commercial shipping arteries, carrying roughly one-fifth of the world’s total oil and gas supplies, and one-third of global seaborne fertilizer trade.
Though a fragile ceasefire was announced on April 7, repeated attacks in and around the strait have kept commercial shipping traffic at a near-complete standstill. The U.S. Navy recently announced it has intercepted and responded to multiple attacks on its vessels from Iranian missiles, drones and small fast-attack craft. For its part, Iran says its actions are a defensive response to U.S. strikes on an oil tanker in its territorial waters, and accuses Washington of violating the fragile ceasefire by carrying out bombings on civilian infrastructure.
In a contradictory move, Iran has offered safe passage to commercial vessels in exchange for payment, but still carries out intermittent strikes on merchant shipping. Since mid-April, the U.S. has further tightened its blockade on Iranian ports, designed to disrupt Iran’s oil exports and cut off its access to foreign currency.
Maritime experts warn that attacks on civilian vessels are growing more frequent, putting civilian crew members in extreme danger. The United Nations estimates that at least 10 seafarers have been killed since the conflict began; Iranian labor unions report that 44 seafarers and port workers have died within Iranian territory alone.
For trapped crews, daily life is defined by unrelenting fear. Stephen Cotton, spokesperson for the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), describes the situation as a “constant heightened state of terror.”
“Military units board civilian ships like it’s the 17th century,” Cotton said. “But these are just ordinary working people just trying to do their jobs and get home to their families.”
The ITF and other maritime advocacy groups draw a clear divide between large international shipping firms, which typically provide stranded crews with hazard pay and emergency support, and smaller, unregulated operators that often ignore international labor rules. Many small operators leave crews without access to basic supplies and cut off access to earned wages.
The crisis is compounded by the fact that most foreign seafarers working in Iranian ports are hired through unlicensed intermediaries that do not meet international labor standards. While international law caps consecutive service on a vessel at 12 months, the ongoing closure of the strait has made repatriation impossible for thousands, forcing them to extend their tours indefinitely.
John Bradford, a former U.S. Navy officer and maritime security analyst, highlighted the far-reaching social toll of the crisis. “Vessels cannot sail, repatriation flights are completely disrupted,” Bradford explained. “Many seafarers are forced to stay far longer than their contracts required, thousands of miles from their families, in an environment that grows more stressful by the day.”
The mental health of trapped seafarers has suffered dramatically as a result. Steven Jones, founder of the Seafarer Happiness Index, reports that overall seafarer well-being has dropped by roughly 5% since the outbreak of the conflict. Trapped crews regularly report seeing drones and missiles flying near their vessels, and live in constant fear of a direct attack.
“One captain told me he had to brief his entire crew on how to evacuate and where to jump overboard if the ship came under attack,” Jones said.
Despite a U.S. announcement of a planned initiative to escort stranded vessels out of the strait, the program was suspended less than 48 hours after it was announced to make space for ongoing peace negotiations.
Even if the strait were fully reopened tomorrow, global trade would take weeks to return to pre-conflict levels. Damage to port infrastructure, overflowing storage facilities, and a massive backlog of exports have created logjams that will take months to resolve. Compounding these risks are naval mines laid by Iran in the strait’s waters, which have made any navigation extremely dangerous. U.S. maritime experts say Iran deployed large numbers of mines but has failed to keep accurate records of their locations, so clearing the waterway could take anywhere from weeks to months.
The International Maritime Organization is currently developing an emergency evacuation plan for stranded crews, but emphasizes that all conflict parties must halt attacks to make large-scale evacuation possible. Beyond the physical danger of being trapped in a conflict zone, seafarers also face the crippling uncertainty of not knowing when they will receive their earned pay. Anish has now waited nine months for his salary, and has no guarantee he will ever receive the money he is owed. His current contract is set to expire on May 20, but he has no information about whether he will be paid after that date.
“Maybe I’ll get my salary then, maybe I won’t,” Anish said.
