A US-sanctioned oil tanker carrying 24 Indian seafarers was attacked off the coast of Oman on Monday and reported to be on fire, the crew’s union said, in an incident the seafarers attributed in a distress call to “a US Navy attack.”
The vessel, the Motor Tanker Marivex, was sanctioned by the US Department of the Treasury in December over activity linked to Iran, Ada Derana reported, citing CNN. The Forward Seamen’s Union of India said all 24 crew members on board were Indian nationals and that they were in distress as the fire spread.
A transcript of the tanker’s distress call, obtained by CNN, captured the crew’s account in real time. “We are (on) fire on board, and (the) vessel is sinking. US Navy attack, the missile on our engine room,” the message said. “Please help. We are (on) fire on board… 24 crew. All crew Indian.” The call also noted that one of the vessel’s lifeboats had caught fire.
Images of the Marivex posted on social media and verified by CNN showed smoke billowing from the tanker’s engine room. The vessel sails under the flag of Palau, and its registered owner, Arihant Shipping Inc., appears on the US list of blocked persons and vessels for activity involving Iran.
CNN has reached out to US Central Command for a response. There has been no formal US confirmation that its naval forces struck the tanker, and Iranian state media had not commented at the time of Ada Derana’s report.
The incident, if confirmed as a US strike, would mark a further escalation of Washington’s Indian Ocean enforcement push targeting sanctioned tankers, after US Central Command intercepted three Iranian-tied tankers in Asian waters earlier this cycle, boarded the M/T Tifani in the Indian Ocean and seized the Majestic X tanker. The Marivex strike would be the first reported case of a sanctioned vessel being directly damaged by what its crew describes as missile fire from US assets, rather than boarded or escorted.
The tanker’s Indian crew composition is a sensitive complication: India’s diaspora seafarer workforce regularly transits sanctioned-tonnage routes, and a confirmed strike on a vessel staffed entirely by Indian nationals would test the Indian Ocean maritime-security balance that Sri Lanka also depends on for its fuel-import shipping lanes.
Update, June 9: All 24 Indian seafarers were rescued and evacuated safely, Indian authorities said, with Omani helicopters airlifting the crew to Masirah Island. Opesh Kumar Sharma of India’s Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways told reporters the fire broke out at about 13:30 local time on June 8 and that all crew were safe. The All India Seafarers Union and the Forward Seamen’s Union of India both confirmed the rescue. US Central Command said in a statement that American forces had “disabled an unladen oil tanker” in the Gulf of Oman after the vessel “violated the ongoing blockade against Iran by attempting to sail to an Iranian port.” An “F/A-18 Super Hornet from USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) fired a precision munition into the ship’s engineering and steering spaces after the crew failed to comply with directions from US forces,” CENTCOM said, adding that “Marivex is no longer sailing to Iran.” Ada Derana, citing BBC, reported the vessel was empty at the time of the strike and located south of the Strait of Hormuz.
