MUMBAI, May 7 (Reuters) – Nightly explosions of drones and missiles terrified Indian sailor Tithi Chiranjeevi after his ship was stranded in Iran for more than a month by the Strait of Hormuz blockade caused by the Middle East conflict.
“Around 10 to 20 missiles struck every night. No one could sleep,” he told Reuters, describing conditions outside Iran’s port of Khorramshahr on his return home last week, after an arduous 15-day journey through Iraq, Armenia, and Dubai.
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The 28-year-old had spent the previous six months working on the Iranian ship Ilda, carrying construction material to Dubai.
The vessel was one of 2,000 trapped in the vicinity of the 104-mile (17-km) waterway that normally carries a fifth of the world’s supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Violence in the region has killed at least three Indian seafarers so far. Before the conflict began in February, about 138 ships passed through the Strait each day, the Joint Maritime Information Centre says.
As food ran out and communication links snapped, Chiranjeevi lost contact with his widowed mother at home in the southern port city of Visakhapatnam.
“They (our families) were very concerned,” he said.
