'We Don't Sleep': 20,000 Sailors Are Trapped in the Persian Gulf as War Rages Around Them

Watching the Rockets

A 28-year-old sailor from India has been at sea since November. What was supposed to be a routine first voyage transporting oil across the Persian Gulf became something else on February 28, when U.S. and Israeli strikes began and Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz. He has been stuck ever since.

"We don't sleep at night. We stay up on deck because you never know what might happen next," he told NBC News, speaking from Iraqi waters in Hindi, his name withheld for fear of reprisals from authorities and his employer.

NBC News spoke to him minutes after an air attack on a Tuesday afternoon. "The ship is still vibrating," he said. He described counting more than a dozen explosions, watching rockets fly over the vessel's deck for nearly half an hour, and feeling the impact of distant strikes through the hull. "I could see when they were hitting the ground, see smoke rise and feel the impact through the ship."

He is one of approximately 20,000 sailors stranded on hundreds of ships in the Persian Gulf, according to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the United Nations' maritime agency, as cited by NBC News and the Guardian.

The Scale: 20,000 People, Hundreds of Ships

The IMO's Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez described the situation in a statement: "Around 20,000 seafarers remain stranded in the Persian Gulf, on board ships under heightened risk and considerable mental strain," per Dupree Report citing the IMO directly.

The Guardian reported that the IMO has "sounded the alarm over the 20,000 seafarers stranded in the Gulf in stressful conditions and facing dwindling supplies." The Wikipedia timeline of the 2026 Iran war notes that the IMO held an extraordinary session regarding humanitarian passage for approximately 20,000 seafarers on approximately 3,200 vessels (both figures described as approximate) west of the strait.

Indian Express, citing IMO Secretary-General Dominguez directly, reported that more than 20 commercial vessels had been attacked in and around Hormuz since the war began, and nearly 2,000 vessels were stranded close to the narrow strait.

The IMO confirmed 18 incidents of damage to commercial vessels from March 1 to 19 alone — specifically in the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf, and the Gulf of Oman, per NBC News citing IMO records. Seven seafarers have been killed and several others severely injured in what the IMO said were Iranian attacks on commercial vessels, per NBC News. An IMO spokesperson verified that eight people total were killed — seven seafarers and one port worker — in the first several weeks of the war, per ABC News.

The Mayuree Naree: What an Attack Looks Like

On March 11, 2026, a Thai-flagged bulk carrier called the Mayuree Naree was struck by projectiles near the Strait of Hormuz. An explosion in the stern caused a fire in the engine room. The Omani Navy rescued 20 crew members. Three crew members remain missing, per Reuters, Bloomberg, and the Bangkok Post. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps said the ship had ignored "warnings," per NBC News.

The ship subsequently drifted for weeks and ran aground off Iran's Qeshm Island, per Bloomberg. The three missing crew members had not been located as of the time of publication of this article.

The Mayuree Naree is one example among what NBC News describes as a pattern: Iran claims to be targeting "hostile" vessels, but the definition of hostile — and who is deciding — is opaque. Ships that cannot prove their credentials to Iranian authorities face attack risk even if they have no military affiliation.

The Invisible Workforce

There are nearly 2 million seafarers in the world, according to NBC News. They come predominantly from the Philippines, India, and other Asian nations. Their labor keeps approximately 90 percent of globally traded goods moving — the vast majority of everything humanity buys, from electronics to grain to fuel, arrives at its destination on a ship.

Angad Banga, chief executive of the Caravel Group — a Hong Kong-based shipping conglomerate whose subsidiary Fleet Management Limited manages more than 600 ships, including some stuck in the Gulf — told NBC News: "The world has relied on these people to keep trade moving under impossible conditions." He added: "The moment the crises fade from the headlines, the world forgets they exist, and that cycle has to break."

Normally, approximately 130 ships would pass through the Strait of Hormuz daily. As of late March 2026, virtually none are able to get through, per NBC News citing Fleet Management data. Inside Fleet Management's Hong Kong headquarters — in a room called "the Bridge" — NBC News observed hundreds of white dots across eight screens representing ships, many of them stationary and waiting.

Banga described his company's response: regular check-ins with crew members, who try to maintain routine through leisure activities and maintenance work on their ships while waiting for conditions to allow passage.

The Human Cost of Successive Crises

The stranded seafarers are not facing this crisis in isolation. It is the third major disruption for the maritime workforce in six years.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, seafarers were confined to their ships for extended periods — unable to rotate off or take shore leave — due to border restrictions imposed by countries worldwide. The mental health toll was documented extensively at the time.

Then, beginning November 2023, Houthi rebels in Yemen began attacking ships in the Red Sea during the Gaza war. The Houthis attacked or hijacked vessels 99 times between November 2023 and September 2025, per Lloyd's List data cited by gCaptain. In those attacks, at least nine sailors were killed and 11 others were held captive for five months, per NBC News.

Now, with Hormuz blocked and the Houthis having re-entered the conflict (attacking Israel beginning March 28, 2026), the seafarers face a third consecutive crisis, with both major Red Sea shipping routes potentially at risk simultaneously.

Dwindling Supplies and Mental Strain

Ships typically carry provisions for a set voyage duration. A vessel expecting a 30-day transit cycle does not carry 90 days of food, water, and medicine. As the blockade has extended through its fourth week, supply constraints are becoming a real concern.

The Guardian specifically reported that the IMO raised alarms about seafarers "facing dwindling supplies" alongside the mental strain of being under fire. The IMO's Dominguez used the phrase "considerable mental strain" to describe the condition of the trapped workers, per the Dupree Report citing the IMO directly.

The scale of the problem exceeds anything attempted in recent decades. The IMO spokesperson told Al Jazeera: "We can insure the ship, but we cannot insure a human life" — a statement that captures the central tension: commercial cargo is recoverable or compensable; human lives are not.

Some of the stranded vessels also include civilian passengers. Wikipedia's 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis article noted that cruise ships were forced to stop using the strait, stranding approximately 15,000 passengers on at least six major cruise ships — including vessels from Aroya Cruises, Celestyal Cruises, MSC Cruises, and TUI Cruises. Their situation has received more media coverage than that of commercial seafarers, partly because of the nature of their passenger status.

What the IMO and International Community Have Done

The IMO held an extraordinary session to address humanitarian passage for the stranded vessels and crews, per Wikipedia's Iran war timeline. The specific outcomes of that session — whether any formal arrangement for safe passage was achieved — have not been publicly confirmed in available reporting as of this article's publication date.

Iran has maintained that it distinguishes between "hostile" and "non-hostile" vessels, and has allowed a small number of ships through the Hormuz corridor under its controlled passage system, requiring cargo manifests, crew lists, and destinations to be submitted to IRGC-approved intermediaries. As of late March, only approximately 150 vessels had passed through since the war began — roughly equivalent to one normal day's traffic, per Al Jazeera.

No Western government has publicly proposed or implemented a humanitarian corridor specifically for stranded commercial crews. U.S. and coalition military assets in the region are focused on air operations against Iran and force protection.