Family seeks justice after Indian sailor killed in US strike
After a US strike on a commercial vessel in the Gulf of Oman killed an Indian sailor, there are urgent questions about seafarer safety, accountability
After a US strike on a commercial vessel in the Gulf of Oman killed an Indian sailor, there are urgent questions about seafarer safety, accountability and India's response. DW spoke with the sailor's family. Sushila Devi is grappling with profound grief after her husband, Indian sailor Shivanand Chaurasia, was killed on June 9 in a US strike on the commerical ship MT Settebello in the Gulf of Oman. An engineering fitter by profession, Chaurasia had spent years training for a career at sea, hoping to build a better future for his family. Instead, his family is now left trying to come to terms with a future without him. Chaurasia was one of three Indian sailors killed when the US military struck the Palau-flagged oil and chemical tanker earlier this month. The US military said it was enforcing a blockade on Iranian oil exports amid the Iran war. Patnala Suresh, a chief engineer and Aditya Sharma, a deck cadet, were also killed. The other 21 Indian crew members onboard were rescued. US officials said the tanker was carrying Iranian oil, and had received repeated warnings. The ship's manager disputes that, saying the vessel had no connection to Iran and received no warning before it was hit. Shivanand Chaurasia was aboard the MT Settebello when it was hit by a US strike on June 9 Image: ANI/IMAGO 'America killed my husband' "They have stolen all my happiness. It was America who killed my husband. That is why Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi and [Uttar Pradesh] Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath are silent. They should have stood up for their people and asked why they did this to us," she told DW. Shivanand Chaurasia's family lives in a farming village in eastern Uttar Pradesh's Deoria district. It's a smattering of mud-and-brick homes amid a few miles of rice fields. The family sits silently inside their modest brick house as relatives and neighbors move in and out, offering words of comfort.
"My brother's death has given us so much pain," said his sister, Soni Chaurasia. "I don't feel like living in this world now, because the family has lost its one and only hope." The family feels abandoned by the Indian government's silence. No leader has paid a visit to the grieving family. "We are poor. That's why the Modi government doesn't care. Had we been rich, they would have visited us," said Soni. Like most families in this part of Uttar Pradesh, the Chaurasias survive on farming, barely producing enough to feed everyone. The sea was supposed to be Shivanand Chaurasia's way out. To pay for the marine engineering course, his family sold land and borrowed nearly 860,000 rupees (€8,000, $9,000). He finally landed a job on an oil tanker. Indian seafarers pay the price in US-Iran war To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video India's maritime workforce India supplies one of the world's largest maritime workforces. According to industry estimates, Indian nationals account for roughly 12% of global seafarers. Tens of thousands work on merchant vessels traversing some of the world's most volatile shipping routes. Under a tree near the Chaurasia house, a group of men gathered to discuss what happened and what it meant for them. Many have relatives working at sea, including the Persian Gulf. For families already carrying debt, maritime work once looked like a way out. Now it looks like a gamble with a life attached. "We won't send our men to sea anymore," one villager said, and the others nodded. Trying to make a living, but caught up in war Indian seafarers have also been injured by Iranian strikes since the war began. Bhumesh, who only goes by his first name, is a seafarer who survived an Iranian attack on the tanker Skylight on March 1, as Tehran enforced its own blockade of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
The BriefWire