India bars seafarers from Strait of Hormuz voyages after attacks

NEW DELHI – 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 seafarers on vessels undertaking voyages through the waterway “until further orders,” the Directorate-General of Shipping said in a post on X late on July 15. 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 Organisation has warned that 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. India’s move echoes an earlier curb by the world’s 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. BLOOMBERG