Seafarers Feel Forgotten — And the World Needs to Notice

When wars break out, the headlines chase oil prices, shipping insurance premiums, and stock markets. The people actually standing on the decks of the ships caught in the crossfire rarely make the front page. That is the gap Arsenio Dominguez, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), tried to close at a recent press briefing on the US-Iran conflict.

Speaking to PTI, Dominguez put it plainly: shipping should not be used as collateral in any geopolitical conflict, and seafarers need to be looked after better. It is a simple sentence, but it carries the weight of a crisis that has been building for months in and around the Strait of Hormuz.

A Human Cost, Not Just an Economic One

The numbers behind that crisis are sobering. Per the IMO, at least 14 seafarers have lost their lives and more than 40 commercial vessels have come under attack since the conflict began. Earlier this month, three Indian seafarers were killed when the tanker Settebello was struck off Oman — a tragedy that barely registered against the noise of geopolitics.

This matters especially for India. Indian seafarers make up about 12% of the world's seafaring workforce, and their numbers have grown from roughly 1.25 lakh to over 3 lakh in recent years, making India one of the top three suppliers of maritime crew globally. When a conflict in the Gulf turns dangerous, it is disproportionately Indian families who feel it.

As Dominguez told reporters, the world tends to hear about fuel prices and economic losses, "and not so much attention on the innocent seafarers." That is the forgotten part of the story.

Stranded, Not Just at Risk

Beyond the attacks themselves, thousands of seafarers have simply been stuck. UN News reports that the IMO-led evacuation moved around 2,500 crew members out of the Gulf on 115 ships in just over three days, out of an estimated 11,000 mariners aboard some 600 vessels still in the region. The operation was paused after the container ship Ever Lovely was struck near Oman's coast, a reminder of how fragile any safe corridor remains.

The International Transport Workers' Federation has described an even larger picture — over 20,000 seafarers stranded across roughly 1,500 ships, many going weeks without fresh food, water, or pay, and unable to disembark without visas. Manoj Yadav of the Forward Seamen's Union of India summed up the toll on mental health simply: these are men trained to run a ship, not to survive a war.

What "Not Collateral" Actually Means

Dominguez's message was not just sympathy — it was a statement of priority. His stated approach has been evacuation first, then the slower, harder work of demining the Strait so normal transit can resume. The IMO has also been coordinating with flag states and shipowners to keep supplies of food, fuel, and medicine flowing to crews still trapped, and helping them stay in touch with families back home.

This year's Day of the Seafarer campaign, themed "Carrying world trade. Carrying the risks," was built around exactly this point: the 1.8 million men and women who keep global trade moving should never be treated as expendable when nations clash.

Why This Should Matter to All of Us

It is easy to think of shipping as an abstract supply chain — containers, charts, tracking numbers. But every one of those ships has a crew, often far from home, often from communities where a seafaring job is a hard-won path out of poverty. When shipping becomes a pressure point in a geopolitical standoff, it is these individuals who absorb the risk first.

Dominguez's appeal is a reminder worth sitting with: safety of life at sea, and respect for international law, has to remain the non-negotiable baseline — not a footnote to the bigger story of oil prices and politics. Seafarers carry the world's trade. The least the world can do is not forget them while it carries on with its conflicts.