Extract from ABC News
Ships floating in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Dubai near the Strait of Hormuz on March 28, 2026. (Supplied: Sentinel Hub)
Interviews and first-hand accounts from sailors stranded in the Persian Gulf — under threat of drone attacks, missiles, and exploding boats — reveal an increasingly dire humanitarian crisis unfolding.
Iran's blockade of one of the world's most critical shipping lanes, the Strait of Hormuz, has unleashed pain on global markets.
The normally busy strait has been mostly empty since the start of the war. But inside the Persian Gulf, some 2,000 ships remain.
And while the US-Israel war with Iran rages on, the crews on those stranded ships are facing their own battle of attrition.
The ABC has gathered personal accounts from those sailors, and spoken directly to some of them, to paint a picture of the plight faced by the 20,000 trapped seafarers.
'Please help us'
As many of the sailors said they were not allowed by their companies to speak or share images, the ABC has changed their names to protect their identities.
"Earlier at dawn, there was a wave of anti-missiles that really passed overhead," one of the estimated 7,000 Filipino sailors told the ABC.
"By the grace of God, no projectile hit the ship or anywhere near our ship."
Since the start of the war, 10 sailors have been killed in attacks targeting 21 vessels in and around the Strait of Hormuz, according to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
But Iranian attacks are not the only threat. Access to supplies and medical care has also been disrupted.
"Our company has no advice, for now. We just have to endure. We still have our supplies, and our captain said our food here will last until May. I just don't know if the water for bathing will still last," the Filipino sailor said.
In texts shared with the Forward Seamen's Union of India (FSUI), one sailor pleaded to be saved.
"Many are facing shortage of food, water and bunker," he said.
"Continuous missile attacks are taking place — please help us."
The risk to crews on oil and gas tankers is especially high due to the flammability of the cargo.
Scenes of an inferno engulfing two fuel tankers attacked by explosive-laden boats, in the second week of the war, are a sobering reminder of the perils that sailors in the Gulf are facing, according to International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) general secretary Stephen Cotton.
Fuel tankers erupt in flames after being attacked in the Gulf.
"We're talking about a tanker that's loaded with crude oil that has just been hit … the potential for an enormous, devastating incident with a massive loss of life is quite high," he said.
"And, of course, they've been living with that for five weeks now."
In an email to the ITF, seen by the ABC, one sailor described how their crew was being forced to stay in the Gulf as the owners and operators of the vessel said they were unable to provide alternative routes to leave, such as via flights.
"They can't help us, it's totally dependent on operations and owners," the sailor wrote.
"When it comes to owners, they are forcing us to continue to do cargo operations and STS [ship-to-ship transfers] even [though] we raise our concerns about our safety and we are in war-like area."
Mr Cotton said the sailors were effectively trapped on the "front line" of the conflict, and Iran's arsenal of drones and other guerilla tactics meant the situation was much more precarious than during previous wars.
"This is a different kind of warfare,"Mr Cotton said.
"Those days you could convoy and you could more or less protect the ships in the convoy — today … even with the most advanced missile defence systems, ships are still getting hit."
Regime change in the Strait of Hormuz
Iran and Oman, which border the northern and southern sides of the strait, have been drafting a protocol to "oversee transit through the Strait of Hormuz", according to Iranian state media, citing Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi.
The Oman-owned Dhalkut oil supertanker spotted on satellite imagery on April 2, 2026. (Supplied: Sentinel Hub)
Reports of those discussions coincided with the first two non-Iranian supertankers transiting the strait on April 2, along with the first known LNG tanker.
All three ships are Oman-owned, and the oil tankers have a capacity to carry about two million barrels of oil each.
The Dhalkut supertanker was carrying Saudi oil it had loaded on February 26, before the war started. The second supertanker, Habrut, was laden with oil from the UAE's Zirku oil terminal.
Before the start of the war, most ships sailed through the middle of the strait. But in recent weeks, many vessels have been sailing further north near the Iranian coast and transiting via Iran's "toll booth".
But tracking data and satellite imagery show that the Omani ships are following an unusual shipping route, hugging the Omani coast to transit the strait one after another.
Iran's parliament has approved a bill to charge a fee to ships sailing in and out of the Persian Gulf, according to Iranian state media.
The cost of passage for oil tankers starts at about $US1 ($1.44) per barrel payable in Chinese yuan or cryptocurrency, Bloomberg reported, which could mean fees of up to $US2 million for supertankers.
The head of the Iranian Parliament's National Security Committee Ebrahim Azizi said on Wednesday that Mr Trump had "finally achieved his dream of 'regime change' — but in the region's maritime regime".
"The Strait of Hormuz will certainly reopen, but not for you — it will be open for those who comply with the new laws of Iran," Mr Azizi said on X.
"The 47 years of hospitality are over forever."
Many of the vessels trapped in the Gulf are large ships critical to the global supply chain, including oil and gas tankers, and bulk cargo carriers.
Normally, about 138 vessels sail through the Strait of Hormuz each day, according to the Joint Maritime Information Centre.
But marine tracking data and satellite imagery, analysed by the ABC, show that only 197 ships transited the strait in the entire first month of the war, averaging to about six a day.
Iran owns the most ships transiting the strait — about a fifth — but many vessels owned by other countries also carry Iranian cargo.
The available data provides an incomplete picture as some ships sail without broadcasting their locations. Many of those vessels are part of the so-called "shadow fleet" which transports sanctioned cargo, such as Iranian oil.
No plan to reopen critical shipping lane
Another Filipino sailor on a separate ship described to the ABC the moment he and his crew first received news that the US and Israel had bombed Iran on February 28, starting the war.
"Six hours before we left Saudi [Arabia] we already had news that the Strait of Hormuz was closed," he said.
"It takes 28 hours to get there, so we were no longer able to pass."
Many ships have queued up on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz, in the Gulf of Oman. (Reuters: Benoit Tessier)
Many crews quickly came to the same realisation, but few were prepared for how long their escape route would be closed for, according to former merchant mariner Sal Mercogliano, who said several sailors in the Gulf had contacted him.
"I had one guy tell me, 'Sal, we were 12 hours from leaving the strait — if we knew, we would have ran it, but we got called back. We didn't think it was going to take this long. We thought we'd be in here for like a week, and then we'd pop out,'" Dr Mercogliano said.
"He goes, 'We just want to get out now.'"
While the vast majority of the 2,000 or so ships in the Persian Gulf have so far been unscathed, just the threat of attack has been enough to ward off most crews from attempting to transit the strait.
"The biggest challenge is for all crew to be able to go home to their families," the Filipino sailor said.
On Wednesday night, US President Donald Trump delivered a national address in which he reiterated the war with Iran would only last another two to three weeks.
In the early stages of the war, Mr Trump had suggested the US could help escort ships out.
But his more recent rhetoric suggested the US no longer had such plans, or any intention of helping to reopen the critical shipping lane, which Iran has effectively kept closed since the US and Israel's first strikes on Tehran.
"The United States imports almost no oil through the Hormuz Strait and won't be taking any in the future. We don't need it," Mr Trump said on Thursday.
Mr Trump said the strait — where about 20 per cent of the world's oil and gas normally flows through — would "open up naturally" after the conflict was over.
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