The Iran war is turning one of the world's busiest shipping corridors into a graveyard of unanswered distress calls, missing vessels and mounting casualties. At least 25 seafarers have been killed and 130 maritime incidents reported since the conflict began on February 28.
The disappearance of two cargo ships carrying six crew members, including two Indians, has exposed the growing human cost of a war being fought far beyond the battlefield. According to a Reuters investigation, commercial shipping has been caught between two fronts, with Iran attacking vessels in an effort to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz, while the United States has struck Iran-linked ships as part of its blockade of Iranian ports.
The attacks have disrupted maritime operations and exposed civilian crews to the dangers of a conflict in which even ships with no direct military role are increasingly at risk. The scale of the danger is reflected in the disappearance of two cargo vessels, Bridge 1 and Bridge 2, which were last detected in Iranian waters on May 9. The ships, both flying the Bolivian flag and reportedly carrying steel as part of Iranian trade, lost communication with their crews near Iran's Kish Island. Their last known Automatic Identification System (AIS) transmission placed them around eight nautical miles from the island at 4.50 pm. No distress signals were received, and neither vessel appeared on the IMO's list of reported incidents, Reuters reported.
Twenty-three-year-old Naveen Kumar from Tamil Nadu is among those missing after the vessels disappeared. According to Reuters, Kumar had signed a six-month contract for what his family believed was a Dubai-based job but was taken to Iran within a week of joining. His family has not heard from him since May 9. His mother, V Pandiselvi, told Reuters that the family has been desperately seeking information about his whereabouts. She said they continue to replay his old voice messages while waiting for news. The family had also borrowed around Rs 15 lakh to finance his maritime training.
The uncertainty has left Kumar's family struggling to establish what happened to him. His family approached Mumbai-based recruitment firm Lascar Marine Services, which had arranged his employment. However, they alleged that the company initially assured them of his return but later stopped responding to their calls. India's Seamen's Employment Office subsequently withdrew the firm's recruitment licence and barred its past and present directors from maritime business for five years, citing failures to repatriate seafarers, including Kumar, and pay their wages.
The uncertainty extends beyond the Indian sailor. The six crew members aboard the two missing vessels included three Iraqis, two Indians and one Pakistani. Iraqi maritime official Khaled Saad al-Thaalibi told Reuters that Iranian search-and-rescue teams had looked for the vessels but failed to find them. "We don't know if the vessels sunk or were confiscated by a country," he said. Shipping sources have also raised the possibility of a US strike, but the circumstances surrounding their disappearance remain unconfirmed.
The disappearance of the vessels has also raised questions about the safety of commercial ships operating in the region. Reuters reported that the two ships were not included in the IMO's record of maritime incidents, despite their disappearance and the missing crew. The lack of a distress signal or confirmed account of their fate has added to concerns over the risks faced by sailors navigating waters caught in the Iran conflict.
