Ship Hit by Projectile in Strait of Hormuz, Five Indians Rescued
New Delhi: India's embassy in Oman on Friday (October 2) coordinated the rescue of five Indian nationals who were aboard an oil tanker that was struck by a projectile in the Strait of Hormuz, it said, adding that the individuals are ashore and safe.
The embassy did not say how the Kuwaiti-flagged MT Kazima III came to be struck by a projectile.
Earlier on Friday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre said that a tanker had reported being hit by an unknown projectile in the Strait of Hormuz at around 3 pm local time. The hit resulted in a small fire and a blackout aboard the vessel, it said.
It is not clear if this vessel was the Kazima III and the Centre did not divulge further details of what happened, but Iran has regularly fired at ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz in its bid to control the key chokepoint.
Friday's incident came days after an attack on the MV Cape Dao near the Strait of Hormuz on September 23 killed one Indian national on board the vessel, one Suraj Yadav from Uttar Pradesh. Twenty more Indians aboard the ship along with others were rescued. New Delhi condemned the attack and called for a halt to the targeting of merchant ships and civilians in West Asia.
That incident in turn occurred ten days after an attack on the MT El Gaia off Oman's coast rendered missing one of the 14 Indian nationals on the commercial vessel.
Yadav's demise followed the deaths of 13 Indian seafarers amid the ongoing West Asia crisis. The external affairs ministry said on Tuesday that there are currently 163 Indian mariners aboard 12 vessels that are in the Persian Gulf west of the Strait of Hormuz, transit through which Iran has restricted in retaliation to the US-Israeli war against it.
Indian seafarers have also come under attack in the Red Sea, on the other side of the Arabian peninsula, and fallen victim to strikes in the Black Sea amid the Russia-Ukraine war.
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