Crew evacuated after third vessel with Indians attacked off Oman
Crew members of a tanker carrying 20 Indians were evacuated on Thursday after the vessel came under attack off an Oman port, Indian officials said.
This was the third instance of a merchant ship with Indian crew members coming under attack from the US military off the Oman coast in the last four days.
A Palau-flagged oil tanker carrying 24 Indian seafarers was disabled by US forces on Monday. All crew members of the vessel, MT Marivex, were safely rescued. On Wednesday, the US struck another Palau-flagged tanker, MT Settebello, killing three out of the 24 Indian sailors on board.
Following Wednesday’s incident, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) summoned US Charge d’Affaires Jason Meeks and he was handed a diplomatic note of protest.
The third attack — on a Guinea-Bissau-flagged vessel identified as MT Jalveer — took place on Thursday. The Indian Embassy in Muscat said in a post on X: “The rescue operation with the support of the Omani authorities has been successfully completed and all the 20 Indian crew members have been evacuated ashore. The Mission is coordinating with the Omani authorities on further actions.”
The mission had earlier posted that 22 Indian crew members were evacuated, and later revised the figure to 20. The MEA confirmed that the ship had come under attack. “These attacks came from the US Navy that is stationed there,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a press briefing in New Delhi while responding to a question on the incidents involving the vessels.
“We attach high importance to the welfare and well-being of our seafaring community,” Jaiswal said. He further said India has conveyed that “dialogue and diplomacy is the way forward for the peaceful resolution of the conflict”.
The US Central Command said in a statement that it disabled MT Jalveer for allegedly violating its blockade against Iran by attempting to transport Iranian oil.
It said a US aircraft struck the vessel’s engine room after the crew “repeatedly failed to comply with directions from US forces”.
Jaiswal said two of the three vessels were subject to sanctions administered by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), while another was classified as non-compliant. The OFAC is the financial intelligence and enforcement agency of the US Treasury Department that acts against vessels involved in violating US sanctions on the sale of Iranian and Russian oil.
India has described the attacks on commercial vessels as “deeply worrisome” and it has strongly taken up the matter with the US.
The US military imposed a blockade on Iranian ports after Iran effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which around 20 per cent of global energy supplies are transported in normal times.
