India's embassy in Tehran said it is in close contact with authorities after the liquefied petroleum gas tanker DISHA, with 28 Indian nationals onboard, came under attack in Iranian territorial waters on Friday. The embassy said all Indian crew are safe and that it continues to monitor the situation, according to a statement posted on X.
In a separate incident flagged the same day, India's external affairs ministry said the commercial vessel MV OMORFI was struck while transiting the Black Sea in what was reportedly Russian territorial waters. One Indian seafarer died and two others are reported safe. The Indian mission in Russia has contacted local authorities and Delhi condemned the strikes on commercial shipping.
The twin incidents land on a weekend that has already tested seafarer safety across three theatres at once. Houthi attacks on Aramco sites at Jizan and Yanbu have thinned Bab el-Mandeb crossings to their lowest daily count in months, Hormuz transits have fallen below ten vessels a day, and now tankers in both Iranian and Russian waters are being hit within hours of each other.
India's directorate general of shipping has issued a circular telling all Indian flag vessels and foreign flag ships with Indian crew to exercise the highest degree of caution while transiting waters near Yemen, the Bab el-Mandeb strait and the southern Red Sea. Last month, vessels carrying Indian nationals were struck by American forces in the Gulf of Oman, prompting Delhi to summon a US embassy official.
For owners and charterers the picture is a widening war risk map with no clean detour. LPG carriers serving Indian import terminals have limited routing options around the Gulf, and Black Sea grain and product routes are seeing the same pattern of one off strikes on merchant tonnage. Insurers and flag states will be watching whether Friday's DISHA and OMORFI incidents mark another step up in premiums and convoy requests.