The number nobody is counting
There are approximately 22,500 people trapped on ships in and around the Persian Gulf right now, and almost nobody with the power to help them is talking about it. The figure comes from vessel tracking data compiled by MarineTraffic and cross-referenced with crew manifests filed with the International Maritime Organization. About 1,550 vessels are currently stationary or loitering in the Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, and the approaches to the Strait of Hormuz. Most of those ships have been there for weeks. Some have been there since the crisis began in early April.
These are not naval vessels with well-stocked galleys and supply chains. These are commercial ships: tankers, bulk carriers, container ships, general cargo vessels. Their crews are mostly Filipino, Indian, Bangladeshi, and Indonesian. The average commercial seafarer signs a nine-month contract. They expect to go home. Instead, they are anchored in a war zone, watching drones pass overhead and hearing distant explosions, wondering when someone will come get them.
Ninety days of rice and canned fish
The food situation is the most urgent problem. A commercial vessel typically provisions for 45 to 60 days at sea. That is the standard. You load enough rice, flour, canned goods, frozen meat, and fresh vegetables for two months of three meals a day for a crew of 20 to 30 people. Some ships provision for longer. Most do not.
The crisis began in early April. It is now late May. That means many of these ships have been stationary for nearly 60 days, and some have been unable to restock since March, when they entered the Gulf expecting a routine transit. The crews that have been stuck the longest, the ones who entered the Gulf before the conflict escalated, are now on day 80 or 90 of their provisions. They are rationing.
A chief cook on a Liberian-flagged bulk carrier, who I reached through a satellite phone connection arranged by the International Transport Workers' Federation, described the situation on his ship. He is Filipino, 43 years old, from General Santos City. He asked me not to use his name because his employer has told crews not to speak to media. "We stopped serving breakfast two weeks ago," he told me. "Lunch is rice with canned sardines. Dinner is rice with whatever is left. We have no fresh vegetables. No fruit. The water maker is working but we are careful with it."
His ship, a 58,000-deadweight-ton bulk carrier loaded with Saudi cement, has been anchored northeast of Bahrain since April 8. The 23 crew members have not set foot on land in 51 days. The captain has requested reprovisioning through the ship's agent in Bahrain, but no bunker or supply vessel has come. The agent told the captain that no commercial vessel wants to enter the Gulf to deliver supplies because they, too, would become trapped.
This is the self-reinforcing nature of the crisis. Ships cannot leave, so supply vessels will not enter. Because supply vessels will not enter, the trapped ships run lower on food and fuel. Because they run lower on fuel, they cannot run their generators at full capacity, which means reduced refrigeration, reduced water production, reduced air conditioning in ambient temperatures that regularly exceed 40 degrees Celsius on deck.
The people on these ships
I want to be specific about who we are talking about. The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration reports that approximately 490,000 Filipino seafarers are deployed worldwide at any given time. They make up roughly 28 percent of the global maritime workforce. In the Persian Gulf specifically, Filipinos are estimated to account for about 34 percent of crew on commercial vessels. That means roughly 7,650 Filipino nationals are currently trapped on these ships.
Indian seafarers account for another 24 percent, approximately 5,400 people. The Indian Directorate General of Shipping has set up a 24-hour helpline for families of seafarers in the Gulf. As of May 27, the helpline had received over 3,200 calls. Most of the callers are wives and parents asking when their family members are coming home. The directorate has no answer for them.
Bangladeshi crew members, approximately 3,150 people, are in an even worse position. Bangladesh does not have a naval presence in the Gulf and has limited diplomatic leverage to arrange evacuations. The Bangladesh Ministry of Shipping issued a statement on May 15 urging "all parties to ensure the safety of Bangladeshi nationals," but no concrete action has followed.
These are not highly paid professionals with savings to fall back on. The average Filipino seafarer earns between $1,200 and $2,500 per month, depending on rank. They support extended families. Every day they are stuck in the Gulf is a day they are not earning wages on their next contract, because most of them are paid only while under contract. If their contract expires while they are trapped, they enter a legal gray zone where their employer may stop paying them entirely while still being responsible for their repatriation. I spoke with one man, a 31-year-old Indian able seaman from Odisha, who told me his contract expired on May 10. He is still on board. He is still working. He is not sure if he is being paid.
Dodging drones and missiles
The food shortage is the slow crisis. The fast crisis is the one that comes from above. Twenty-two commercial vessels have been attacked in the Gulf since the conflict began, according to data compiled by gCaptain and confirmed by the UK Maritime Trade Operations office. The attacks have come from drones, missiles, and small-boat raids. Not all of them were deliberate. Some vessels were hit by debris or stray fire. But the crews on the remaining 1,500-plus ships do not know which way the next drone is coming from, and that uncertainty is its own kind of torture.
A second engineer on a Greek-managed product tanker described what it is like to be anchored in the northern Gulf during an exchange of fire. "You hear the thuds in the distance. Then you see the tracer fire. Then sometimes you hear a drone, a buzzing sound. The captain tells everyone to go below decks. We close all the doors. We turn off the lights. We sit in the mess room and wait. Sometimes for hours. You do not know if the drone is targeting a military ship near you or if it is lost and might hit anything. You just wait."
The Royal Navy issued a notice to mariners on May 22 warning of a "developing humanitarian emergency" among civilian crews in the Gulf. The notice, distributed through the UKMTO channel, urged all vessels with remaining provisions to share with those running low, and called on "all parties to the conflict to allow safe passage for humanitarian resupply." The notice was not followed by any operational plan. It was words on a screen.
Why they cannot just leave
The obvious question is: why do these ships not simply sail out? The answer is more complicated than it appears. Some vessels cannot leave because their owners have ordered them to stay put, calculating that a stationary ship in a relatively safe anchorage is better than a moving target in a contested strait. Others cannot leave because their cargo is committed to a Gulf port, and abandoning the voyage would trigger massive contractual penalties and insurance claims. Still others have tried to leave and been turned back by the IRGC, which has established what amounts to a checkpoint at the eastern approach to the strait.
And then there are the ships that could theoretically leave but whose crews are too exhausted and demoralized to safely navigate a war zone. Fatigue is a genuine safety hazard. A crew that has been on edge for two months, rationing food, sleeping poorly, and watching military activity around them, is not a crew you want navigating a tanker through a narrow strait under threat of attack. The International Chamber of Shipping issued a guidance note on May 18 warning that "prolonged stress and inadequate nutrition among seafarers in the Gulf region poses a serious risk of maritime accidents."
gCaptain, the maritime industry publication, has been among the most vocal in calling attention to the crew crisis. In an editorial published on May 25, editor John Konrad wrote: "We spent weeks arguing about freight rates and oil prices while 22,000 people sat on ships wondering if anyone remembered they existed. The industry should be ashamed." He is right. I have been covering this crisis since April and I did not write about the crews until now. That is on me.
The humanitarian corridor that does not exist
There have been discussions about establishing a humanitarian corridor to allow non-combatant vessels to exit the Gulf safely. The UK and France, which are coordinating a naval presence in the region under what they call the Northwood Coalition, have raised the idea in diplomatic channels. Iran has not agreed to it. The IRGC has said that "vessels of neutral nations may apply for passage authorization," which is another way of saying they want to control who leaves and who stays, and probably who pays the transit fee.
The International Maritime Organization has convened two emergency sessions on the crew crisis. Both ended with strongly worded statements and no operational outcomes. The IMO has no enforcement mechanism. It can set standards and make recommendations, but it cannot dispatch rescue vessels or compel belligerents to allow safe passage.
I keep thinking about what the chief cook told me at the end of our conversation. I asked him if there was anything he wanted people to know. He was quiet for a long time. Then he said: "We just want to go home. We are not soldiers. We are cooks and cleaners and sailors. We just want to go home."
There are 22,500 people who feel the same way. They are waiting for someone to make that possible.