UAE Coast Guard Rescues 19 Indian Sailors After Projectile Hits Tanker Off Mina Saqr

NEW DELHI — A projectile slammed into the Liberia-flagged crude oil tanker Mt Dominica Prosperity as it drifted off the port of Mina Saqr, triggering an emergency maritime evacuation across United Arab Emirates territorial waters on Wednesday.

All 19 Indian seafarers aboard escaped unharmed.

Emergency search-and-rescue teams from the UAE Coast Guard pulled the entire 22-member crew off the stricken tanker within hours of the detonation, averting casualties in an increasingly volatile shipping lane.

The strike off Mina Saqr was not an isolated flare-up.

Instead, it caps a harrowing 48-hour barrage targeting merchant vessels crewed by Indian nationals navigating the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

Three Maritime Strikes in Forty-Eight Hours

Hours before the projectile hit off Mina Saqr, another commercial vessel came under fire in the bottleneck of the Strait of Hormuz.

On November 11, the Saudi Arabia-flagged oil tanker NCC FAJR was targeted in a suspected projectile attack while negotiating the narrow transit strait with three Indian crew members aboard. That vessel pushed through without casualties, leaving the entire crew intact and operational.

Yet just a day earlier, on November 10, a direct hit drew blood.

The Liberia-flagged Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) MT FUJAIRAH ENERGY was steaming from Al Ruwais to Dubai across the Persian Gulf when a projectile tore into the structure. Shrapnel and blast force injured four crew members—including an Indian mariner who sustained minor wounds before emergency teams transferred him ashore for medical treatment. The remaining 18 crew members, including five other Indian sailors, survived uninjured.

Chokepoint Peril in the Strait of Hormuz

Merchant lanes across West Asia have turned into high-risk gauntlets. For New Delhi, the stakes are existential.

Roughly 20 percent of the world's petroleum supply flows through the Strait of Hormuz, the single maritime gateway separating the Persian Gulf from the Gulf of Oman. India depends heavily on crude shipments routed directly through these contested waters to feed domestic refineries. At the same time, Indian seafarers make up between 10 and 12 percent of the global commercial maritime workforce, placing thousands of civilian sailors directly in harm's way.

Shipping authorities in New Delhi confirmed that round-the-clock monitoring desks will maintain direct hotlines with regional coast guards, commercial fleet operators, and maritime security coordination centers until the evacuated crews secure clearance to travel.