Key facts
- Six crew were aboard Bridge 1 and Bridge 2: three Iraqis, two Indians and one Pakistani, per Reuters.
- Khaled Saad al-Thaalibi said the vessels' AIS last transmitted about 8 nautical miles from Iran's Kish Island on May 9 at 4:50 p.m.
- Iraq said in May it was monitoring the disappearance; no distress signals were received, and Gulf ports requested information.
- India's Seamen's Employment Office withdrew Lascar Marine Services' recruitment license and barred its directors for five years, per an order dated May 22.
- Shipping sources said the two vessels were involved in Iranian trade and carrying steel.
- Hiring costs for sailors have tripled since the war began, with captains able to earn three times their pre-conflict $8,000 to $13,000 a month, a Dubai-based shipper said.
Two Iran-linked cargo vessels, Bridge 1 and Bridge 2, disappeared around May 9 with six crew members aboard, and their fate remains unclear, Reuters reported on November 10. The vessels flew the Bolivian flag and were last tracked about 8 nautical miles from Iran's Kish Island on May 9 at 4:50 p.m., according to Khaled Saad al-Thaalibi, who heads the Iraqi maritime foundation in Basra. Iraq said in May it was monitoring the disappearance, no distress signals were received, and Gulf ports requested information after communications with the crew were lost.
The missing crew are three Iraqis, two Indians and one Pakistani. One of the Indians, 23-year-old Naveen Kumar, was deployed to the vessels after his family took out around 1.5 million Indian rupees ($16,000) in loans for his maritime training course. His mother, V. Pandiselvi, told Reuters she has not heard from him for more than six months and still keeps his phone line active. The other Indian crew member was not named.
Haider Rahman al-Mayahi, a 22-year-old Iraqi sailor, was also on the crew, his brother Youssef Rahman said. Al-Mayahi's family travelled to Iran seeking answers and located the vessels' owner, whom they identified only as an Iranian who told them he had no information on the vessels. Shipping sources said the vessels were involved in Iranian trade and carrying steel. Some shipping sources said the vessels may have been struck by the US and sunk immediately, while others speculated the crew had been detained by a Gulf state or Iran.