A drone view shows vessels in the Strait of Hormuz as seen from Musandam, Oman, in June. Hundreds of ships have been stuck in the Persian Gulf for months, unable to pass through the Strait of Hormuz because of attacks from the Iranian and U.S. militaries.Stringer/Reuters
The desperate WhatsApp messages land so frequently that Mohamed Arrachedi can barely keep up. They’re from seafarers on hundreds of cargo ships and oil tankers stuck in the Persian Gulf, forgotten hostages of the war in Iran and the battle over control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Most of the mariners are from the Philippines and India, but there are also plenty of Africans, Indonesians, Burmese, Ukrainians and others. Some tell Mr. Arrachedi, a co-ordinator with the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), that they haven’t been paid in months. Others say they’re running low on food, water, medicine and hope.
“Please, please captain help us and give us a direction on what to do. Please, please after God you are the only person we have,” reads one recent message.
“I work on a ship, but I do not wish to continue my job due to the current state of war in Iran; I fear for my life. Therefore, I want to quit the job and disembark from the ship. Can you assist me? I don’t want to return to Iran. Sir please help me. I am sick and want to go back to my country for treatment; please help me,” reads another.
Some have included photographs of depleted food supplies and videos of bombs exploding on the horizon.
“It is awful. It’s absolutely dramatic,” Mr. Arrachedi said in an interview from his office in Bilbao, Spain. “The feeling when you have someone crying on your phone saying, ‘Please, sir, please get me out of here, please.’ It affects me personally as well.”
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Mr. Arrachedi has been with the ITF for 25 years and has spent the past eight as the Arab world and Iran network co-ordinator. The London-based umbrella group represents seafarers’ unions around the world. Since the war started, it has fielded some 3,000 requests for help from union members and anyone else caught in the crossfire.
Most of the calls have come through Mr. Arrachedi, who spends countless hours responding to the cries for help. “The situation, unfortunately, is worse than when the war started on the 28th of February,” he said.
“At the time when this started, there was always that hope of a peace agreement,” he said. “But now, when they see that everything is starting again from zero, the desperation is big.”
About 400 civilian vessels, with a total of roughly 6,000 crew members aboard, are still anchored in the Gulf, unable to pass through the narrow Strait of Hormuz because of attacks from the Iranian and U.S. militaries.
A photo illustration taken in Nicosia, Cyprus, on May 4, 2026, shows a person in front of a large screen displaying vessel movements in the Strait of Hormuz on a ship-tracking website.-/AFP/Getty Images
That’s down from early March, when more than 1,000 ships and 15,000 crew were stuck in the Gulf. Dozens of ships managed to leave in June when Iran and the U.S. signed a memorandum of understanding that paused the fighting.
But the ceasefire collapsed, and traffic through the strait has plummeted. Before the war, more than 130 ships passed through it every day; now, fewer than 10.
The ITF estimates that 50 seafarers, including six Iranians, have been killed in missile strikes so far.
It has accused unscrupulous ship owners of taking advantage of the war by cashing in on soaring cargo prices and cutting the pay of seafarers, who earn as little as US$200 a month.
The number of cases of abandonment, in which ship owners have failed to pay wages for at least two months, has been climbing. Last year there were a record 410 cases, according to the ITF, a result of a lack of enforcement and the use of shadow fleets that go largely unchecked. The war in Iran could push that figure even higher in 2026.
Mr. Arrachedi recently received a text from two Ethiopians who haven’t been paid in 12 months. A seafarer from Kenya said he’s gone eight months without pay and needs to send money home to cover the cost of an operation for his six-year-old son. A crew on one boat told him they were down to one meal a day.
“This is modern slavery. This is systemic exploitation,” Mr. Arrachedi said.
Vehicles drive past a billboard depicting the Strait of Hormuz with a caption in Persian reading 'Forever in Iran's Hand' in Tehran on May 25.ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images
Several charities offer assistance to seafarers and their families to help them cope with the emotional toll of the war.
A 24-hour emergency line staffed by the International Seafarers’ Welfare and Assistance Network has seen a 20-per-cent jump in calls and texts since the war started. The ISWAN does everything from providing advice about repatriation to offering counselling to seafarers worried about entering a war zone.
The Catholic charity Stella Maris, which provides counselling and support services to seafarers around the world, has come to the aid of workers on a couple of ships that were attacked in the Gulf. It also assists the families of seafarers.
Stella Maris officials and others have become increasingly concerned about the growing number of attacks on civilian ships.
The Iran war has expanded to the Suez Canal and the Red and Caspian seas. Attacks in the Black Sea have also become more common as the Ukrainian military ramps up drone strikes on ships heading to Russian ports in Crimea in retaliation for the targeting of Ukrainian ports.
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Tim Hill, the head of Stella Maris U.K., said in a recent social-media post that he respects Ukraine’s right to self-defence. “But I also struggle with Ukraine’s use of lethal force against civilian merchant ships and their crews,” he wrote. In an interview, he added, “I just think that civilian ships are off-limits for lethal targeting.”
In Quebec City, Pascal Larose is just hoping to get his company’s two ships and 34 crew members out of the Gulf as soon as possible.
The ships, owned by Groupe Desgagnés, sailed from Europe to Saudi Arabia in late February to deliver a load of industrial equipment. They’ve been trapped ever since.
“At the beginning of March we unloaded the cargo of both ships hoping this was just a couple of days delay, and more than 100 days later we’re still there,” said Mr. Larose, vice-president and director of general transport.
Desgagnés operates 26 ships, and its main business is serving Canada’s North from Montreal. The company occasionally takes on business moving goods between Europe and the Middle East, which is how the boats ended up in the Gulf.
Mr. Larose said one ship has made a few trips between Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to haul cargo. But for the most part they’ve been anchored.
He acknowledged that the situation is difficult for the crew. The company has tried to compensate by keeping the vessels fully stocked with supplies and paying its workers a bonus. Both ships also have Starlink internet service so crew members can keep in touch with their families. And the company managed, with some difficulty, to swap out an entire crew that had been at sea for nine months.
“They are in a bad condition in the sense that it’s still a war zone, but we’re giving them everything that we can give them,” Mr. Larose said.
The ships tried to enter the strait in July by following a route close to Oman recommended by the U.S. Navy. “But that’s the route that Iran is targeting,” he said. They got only so far before turning back.
He has been closely following the twists and turns in the negotiations between Iran’s leaders and U.S. President Donald Trump. “But honestly, we don’t know what to think any more.”
He knows that one day the ships will have to pass through the strait to make the 40-day journey back to Canada. He just doesn’t know when − or how risky it will be.