19 Indian seafarers stranded in Yemen for two weeks evacuated, embassy says

The embassy has confirmed five things: the number of men (19), the two places (Hodeidah, the Red Sea port, and the capital Sana'a), the length of the stranding (about two weeks), their condition (safe, in good health) and their direction of travel (home). It has left several questions open.

That last point needs care. On 23 October the same embassy said 14 Indian nationals aboard a yacht off the Yemeni coast were safe and located around Hodeidah. The External Affairs Ministry's spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, said the ministry had been in touch with the parties there and that all of them were safe. The two groups may overlap, since both were in Hodeidah, but nothing official links them, and treating them as one group would be a guess.

Eight months of attacks: what the ministries have counted

The evacuation sits against a long official record. The ministry's spokesperson told briefings on 28 October and on 3 November that the number of Indians killed in the West Asia conflict had risen from 22 to 23, with seafarers accounting for 14 of the first figure and 15 of the second. He said five more Indians had been killed in attacks on commercial shipping in the Black Sea region and two were missing.

The statements of the shipping and foreign ministries mark the steps along the way.

The July attacks hit MT Al Bahiyah and MT Mombasa, which carried 30 Indian seafarers among 46 crew. One Indian seafarer was killed and another injured on MT Al Bahiyah, and nine Indians were injured on MT Mombasa, two of them critically. After the August sinking the shipping minister, Sarbananda Sonowal, said India "strongly condemns this unprovoked attack on the defenceless mechanised sailing vessel". The External Affairs Ministry called the continuing attacks on commercial shipping in the region deeply worrisome and asked for free and unimpeded navigation to be restored. In that case the Indian Embassy in Riyadh monitored the situation and worked with Yemeni authorities to look after the crew.

What the government says it does for crews

The Seafarer-First initiative, announced on 15 July, set out the standing arrangements. They include real-time, vessel-by-vessel monitoring, a dedicated liaison officer for each affected Indian seafarer, and round-the-clock coordination among the Navy, the Directorate General of Shipping and Indian missions abroad. The directorate was told to build a real-time dashboard tracking every Indian seafarer on vessels in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman, whatever the vessel's flag. Shipowners, vessel managers and recruitment agencies were told to make sure that no Indian seafarer is compelled to sail without adequate information, protection and support.

The June announcement added two duties. Everyone involved must report promptly to the Directorate General of Shipping any incident that affects Indian seafarers, and the Seafarers Welfare Fund Society stands ready to give eligible seafarers and their families the benefits and financial help they are entitled to. The shipping ministry said at that time that dedicated communication channels and emergency response arrangements work around the clock, though it did not publish contact numbers in the statement.

The embassy's post does not say whether the 19 men were tracked under those arrangements, or whether the liaison-officer system was used for them. Those are questions the ministry can answer when it next briefs.

The next confirmations to watch are the men's arrival in India, which the embassy has not dated, and any ministry briefing that names the vessel and the route. Until then, the firm facts are that 19 Indian seafarers are reported safe and on their way home, and that the details of how they got out have not been published.