Indian cargo vessel hit off Oman kills one crew member

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An Indian-flagged cargo vessel carrying 14 Indian seafarers was struck by an unidentified aerial object off the coast of Oman on November 2, killing one crew member and leaving thirteen awaiting repatriation. India's Ministry of External Affairs identified the dead man as Gandhar Nahim Ajij from Gujarat; the survivors were rescued by the Omani Coast Guard. The vessel, MSV AL JUSUFI, was attacked near Limah while the United States was striking Iranian air defences on Qeshm Island and the Strait of Hormuz remained closed to the traffic that normally carries about a fifth of the world's oil. The MEA condemned the attack and repeated its call for de-escalation, noting that "continuing incidents of attacks on commercial shipping in the region are deeply concerning."

The Indian statement is diplomatic boilerplate, but the pattern it describes is not. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Navy said two oil tankers, one a supertanker, exploded after allegedly striking naval mines while attempting an unauthorised passage through Hormuz with their navigation systems switched off. UK Maritime Trade Operations reported an attack on a merchant vessel inside the strait. The major oil companies reported this week that closure of Hormuz has roughly quadrupled their quarterly profits — BP booking 8.46 billion dollars in a single quarter, Shell 10.81 — but those earnings are calculated before anyone prices the risk now landing on crews. One Indian sailor has paid the first instalment. The premiums come next: reinsurers and war-risk underwriters have already begun treating Gulf transits not as an exception to be waited out but as a condition to be priced permanently. Freight rates and insurance cover for a route that no ship can legally or safely use will be decided in London boardrooms, not in Muscat or Mumbai.

India, which supplies a large share of the world's merchant crews, has now joined the list of countries with citizens dead in a war none of them declared. Maersk runs its Indian operations from Mumbai, and the Danish minister visiting that city this week to promote green shipping did not mention that the industry's more immediate problem is a strait where vessels explode.