Months after war broke out, thousands of merchant sailors are still stranded. Security threats, skyrocketing insurance costs, and geopolitical standoffs continue to block a return to normal shipping.
Anchored in the Persian Gulf, crude oil tanker captain Abhijit Chopra learned of the U.S.–Iran peace deal through a flurry of texts from family and friends. Yet, he kept his excitement in check. Around him, neighboring vessels remained quiet, and no ships were rushing toward the Strait of Hormuz.
Chopra and his 21-strong crew have been trapped since the outbreak of war in late February. What began as acute fear and uncertainty eventually eroded into deep boredom—and a daily psychological battle to keep negative thoughts at bay. For more than 120 days, the crew has endured the wait by dining together and singing old Hindi karaoke songs. In early March, the men—all Indian aside from one Ukrainian—marked the Hindu festival of Holi by painting each other’s foreheads with turmeric powder from the ship’s kitchen.
Signs that the strait might reopen have repeatedly vanished, teaching Chopra not to overreact. “When they said the Strait of Hormuz was open, we were a bit optimistic that the vessel might transit,” he said. But when fresh news of tanker attacks broke, the crew realized their ordeal was far from over. “There was a little bit of disappointment,” he said.
Roughly 11,000 foreign seafarers were trapped in the Gulf during the conflict, according to the UN’s International Maritime Organization. Abandoned to the whims of geopolitical forces and slow-moving diplomacy, they fought to keep their ships operational even as missiles and drones buzzed overhead. Their fate highlights a fragile truth: global trade relies on individual workers who must routinely face incredible dangers to keep the modern economy afloat.“
Ultimately, we are just ordinary people. We are fathers, we are sons, we are husbands who are staying for months out at sea carrying out a duty,” Chopra said. “And we are doing this because somebody has to do this and the world’s goods, economies depend on all this seafaring job.”
Oceangoing vessels move more than 80% of global goods by volume and roughly 70% by value, according to World Bank estimates. Today, nearly 2.6 million seafarers crew a global fleet of more than 85,000 merchant vessels, a joint report by shipping trade association BIMCO and the International Chamber of Shipping shows. The vast majority of these workers are recruited from lower-income nations, primarily in Asia, with the Philippines and India alone supplying roughly 30% of the global workforce.
While maritime work is inherently grueling and dangerous, keeping crews isolated from home for months, conditions at sea are technically governed by the Maritime Labour Convention. This International Labour Organization treaty outlines essential work and welfare rights, including protections during extraordinary crises.
Yet, in an industry as hyper-decentralized as global shipping, enforcement remains patchy. While major shipowners generally comply, seafarers on vessels owned by smaller operators are routinely stripped of even these basic rights, maritime advocacy executives told Bloomberg News.“
Global shipping is almost set up to provide multiple, different channels for ownership and operation, where I can be a shipowner sitting in London and flag it to Liberia and register it in Greece and I sit back and earn revenue from the ship,” said Ben Bailey, program director for the Mission to Seafarers, a welfare charity for maritime workers. “It is the seafarers who risk falling through the gaps and not having their rights met.”
