'They left us to burn': Indian sailor recounts surviving Strait of Hormuz missile attack

When Sunil Puniya took his first job at sea, the 26-year-old from Rajasthan, India, thought he was launching a career. Instead, he found himself leaping into the dark waters of the Gulf to escape a burning tanker—the first victim of a maritime crisis that has left thousands of seafarers "stateless" and unprotected.

Puniya is a survivor of the March 1 missile strike on the Skylight, an oil tanker that was hit while nearing the Strait of Hormuz. The attack, which killed two crew members, has pulled back the curtain on a systemic failure in the maritime industry, where opaque ownership and geopolitical sanctions allow shipowners to abandon crews in active conflict zones, says CNN.

"Geopolitical conflicts significantly heighten the risks faced by those at sea," said David Loosley, secretary general of the maritime organization Bimco.

"The ship just shook"

Puniya was asleep in his third-floor cabin when the missile struck the engine room, killing Captain Ashish Kumar and 25-year-old seafarer Dalip Rathore.

"I felt the whole ship shake. I thought there'd been some fault with the engine," Puniya told Reuters. "But as soon as I stepped outside of my room, there was another explosion. There was a complete blackout, and smoke had spread everywhere. Everyone was having trouble breathing."

In the chaos, Puniya helped panicked colleagues reach the deck, only to find the vessel covered in fuel and rapidly losing ground to the fire.

"There was oil everywhere... The flames were coming towards us so we jumped into the sea," Puniya said.

He and other survivors were rescued an hour later by the Oman Navy. But for Puniya, the relief of survival was instantly crushed by the realization that Rathore, a neighbor from his home region who had taken over Puniya's watch in the engine room just hours earlier, was missing. Rathore's body was never recovered.

"In those moments, Dalip was there for me. He became like a brother," Puniya said. "As soon as I realised Dalip wasn't there, that's when it hit me. I started panicking. I kept thinking: how will I answer to his family?"

A ghost in the machine

The tragedy of the Skylight is not merely a casualty of war, but of a breakdown in international maritime law.

Sanctioned by the United States for transporting Iranian oil, the tanker had been deregistered by its flag state and had lost its mandatory insurance. Yet, crews are routinely kept in the dark about the legal status of the ships they board.

"I was told that all the documents were in place and there is insurance," Puniya said of his recruitment process in India.

When questioned, an anonymous recruiting agent involved in the placement told Reuters: "We don't have any such information that there is no insurance."

Since the attack, the ship's owner, Dubai-based Red Sea Ship Management, has become entirely unreachable, leaving Puniya with no wages and Rathore's family with no path to death benefits.

"Because there's no insurance, there would be no compensation," said Michelle Bockmann, a maritime analyst. "You're left to the shipowner's conscience. Can you find the shipowner? Usually in these cases, they're nowhere to be seen."

The broad crisis

The Skylight is one of at least 38 commercial vessels struck in the region since the escalation of the US-Israel-Iran conflict. The violence has trapped an estimated 20,000 seafarers in the Gulf following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, triggering a massive humanitarian crisis.

The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) reports a surge in seafarer abandonment, with over 2,000 distress calls recorded recently. In voice notes obtained by Reuters, trapped men can be heard pleading for help, saying they are running low on provisions and have not heard from their shipowners for months.

"We were very scared, we were shivering and we were contacting anyone possible, anyone possible," said Rex Pereira, a seafarer trapped on another vessel in the region, describing living conditions where drinking water was contaminated with diesel.

"Unfortunately, the industry as a whole has not succeeded in eradicating this cancer that is the abandonment of seafarers," said Mohamed Arrachedi of the ITF.

For Sunil Puniya, the maritime dream is over. He says he will never return to the sea. He remains at home in Rajasthan, unable to face the final duty to his friend.

"I haven't been able to gather the courage to go and see Dalip's family," Puniya said. "If I see his home… I'll feel presence of him and will be able to imagine him there. I miss him a lot."