Seafarers pay the price for the murky business of ship nationality

On April 13, the naval forces of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized a Portuguese-flagged container ship, the MSC Aries, in the Strait of Hormuz and detained its crew. The vessel is operated by Swiss-based Mediterranean Shipping Company, which is leasing it from London-headquartered Zodiac Maritime, owned by Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer. The 25 crew members are citizens of the Philippines, Pakistan, India, Estonia and Russia.

The incident was the latest escalation of tensions in waterways around the Middle East. Over the past few months, the Houthis of Yemen have been attacking ships they deem to be linked to Israel and its allies.

On March 6, one such attack killed three seafarers on the True Confidence ship. Two of them were nationals of the Philippines and the third was Vietnamese; the rest of the crew, who are from the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Nepal and India, were saved by an Indian naval ship. The Houthis claimed True Confidence was an “American ship”, but the vessel is Barbados-flagged, owned by a Liberia-registered company and operated by a Greek one.