标签： Asia

Eight weeks into the ongoing armed conflict between the United States and Iran, more than 20,000 commercial seafarers aboard hundreds of oil tankers, gas carriers and cargo ships remain stranded in the Persian Gulf, trapped by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz — the world’s most critical chokepoint for global energy trade. For these trapped crews, every day brings a constant backdrop of geopolitical tension, the threat of attack, and growing uncertainty about when they will be able to return home.

Indian Captain Rahul Dhar, one of the captains holding position with his crew in the gulf, told the Associated Press his team has watched drones and missiles detonate within visible range of their tanker during daily watches. While the crew has worked to maintain normal routines to preserve morale, the unrelenting strain of the situation is starting to take a toll. A fragile, indefinite ceasefire brokered between the U.S. and Iran has brought a cautious glimmer of hope, Dhar said, but no clear timeline for reopening the strait or allowing ships to exit the region has emerged.

“Day to day, we try to keep things normal with open conversations and small team activities that help lift everyone’s spirits,” Dhar explained. “Those moments when we see drones and interceptions near the ship were really difficult, and created real tension for the whole crew. None of us expected to end up in a warlike situation when we set sail.” Reliable connectivity that has allowed the crew to stay in touch with family back home has been their greatest source of strength, he added, with regular calls and messages helping the crew stay grounded amid chaos.

Dhar is far from alone in his experience. Maritime industry data confirms the staggering scale of the crisis: in the week of April 13–19, only 80 vessels total transited the Strait of Hormuz, a sharp drop from the pre-war average of more than 130 transits per day. Normally, roughly 20 percent of the world’s total oil and liquefied natural gas supplies move through the waterway, making its closure a major disruption to global energy markets and trade. Since the conflict began, dozens of commercial vessels have come under attack, and the United Nations has confirmed at least 10 seafarers have been killed in the violence. The ceasefire has not resolved hostilities entirely: the U.S. has maintained its blockade of Iranian ports, while Iran has retaliated by firing on transiting vessels and seizing two commercial ships.

India, the world’s largest supplier of maritime labor, has thousands of its nationals trapped on stranded vessels, most anchored close to major Iranian ports including Bandar Abbas and Khorramshahr. Manoj Kumar Yadav, a representative with the Forward Seamen’s Union of India, told AP that explosions have occurred as close as a few hundred meters from some anchored ships, forcing crews to witness blasts directly from their decks. Many of the trapped sailors are on their first overseas voyage, Yadav said, leaving them unprepared for the chronic fear and isolation of their current situation. His union receives daily distress calls from trapped crews and their worried families back in India.

Beyond the threat of violence, many crews are facing acute shortages of basic necessities including food and drinking water, forcing ships to implement strict rationing of supplies. Internet connectivity is often spotty or disrupted entirely by signal jamming, and when contact with home is possible, sailors face exorbitant roaming charges for just a few minutes of conversation. Most Indian sailors in the region are beyond the reach of coordinated government evacuation efforts; as of last week, India’s shipping ministry confirmed only 2,680 sailors have been evacuated since the conflict began. Families of trapped seafarers have grown increasingly anxious, mounting calls for urgent action to secure the safe return of their loved ones. The International Transport Workers’ Federation confirmed earlier this month that it has received hundreds of requests for urgent assistance, including pleas for emergency food supplies, from trapped crews across the gulf.

For many seafarers, the greatest burden of the crisis is the pervasive uncertainty. Reza Muhammad Saleh, an Indonesian chief officer on a Greek-owned cargo ship that has been stranded off Oman for more than a month, described how a drone exploded near his port of anchorage just days after the crew arrived in early March, with two additional follow-up incidents forcing the entire crew to repeatedly evacuate to reinforced bunkers. No crew members were injured in the attacks, but the constant unpredictability has worn on the team.

“The biggest problem is the uncertainty. We don’t know when Hormuz will be open again,” Saleh said. His 24-person multinational crew, which includes sailors from Indonesia, Arab states, India and Ethiopia, normally transports iron ore across Gulf states and transits Hormuz one to two times per month. Now, any crossing requires written official clearance from Iran, a requirement that makes shipping companies unwilling to take the risk of moving the vessel. Even experienced crews used to working in high-risk regions have been shaken by near-daily missile strikes and persistent GPS disruptions that force crews to navigate manually, Saleh added: “Sometimes we think it’s safe, then suddenly it’s not. Today we’re safe. Tomorrow, nobody knows.”

Shipping company leaders report that while limited crew rotations have been possible, most replacement crews are unwilling to travel to the conflict zone, a choice companies say they respect. Fleet Management Limited, which manages more than 400 seafarers across dozens of stranded vessels in the region, checks food stock levels regularly and arranges for emergency resupply by moving ships to the nearest safe points to pick up fresh provisions, said CEO Captain Rajalingam Subramaniam. Most trapped seafarers have been stuck in the gulf since the war began, and many never agreed to work in a combat zone when they signed their contracts.

“For mariners who did not sign up to be in warlike area, they also need to be respected so that they do not become the unintended collateral,” Subramaniam said. Even during the ceasefire, multiple vessels that attempted to cross Hormuz were fired on or forced to turn back, so Fleet Management has not allowed any of its managed ships to attempt a crossing. Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd, one of the world’s largest container shipping firms, has 150 sailors trapped on six vessels near the strait, and stays in daily contact with trapped crews, according to spokesman Nils Haupt. While limited rotations have occurred, months of isolation have left crews facing crippling monotony.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO), the United Nations’ global shipping regulatory body, and other international groups have called for the establishment of a safe transit corridor for commercial vessels in the strait. Despite Iran’s claims that it has opened the strait to non-hostile vessels and its demand to collect passage tolls from commercial ships, almost all vessels remain blocked. Iran has placed naval mines in the waterway, while the U.S. is currently conducting mine-clearing operations and has issued orders to attack any Iranian boats laying mines. “Under heightened risks of mines and attacks on ships, there is no safe transit anywhere in the Strait of Hormuz,” said IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez.

Industry leaders warn the ongoing crisis could worsen an already severe global shortage of skilled seafarers. Trapping seafarers against their will in conflict zones is not a new problem: the COVID-19 pandemic created widespread crew change crises, followed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and ongoing Houthi rebel attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Subramaniam warned that even after the Iran conflict ends and the strait reopens, fewer skilled workers will be willing to work on commercial vessels that travel through high-risk Middle Eastern regions, exacerbating the existing global labor shortfall.

Reporting for this article was contributed by Associated Press journalists across New Delhi, Berlin, Paris, Hong Kong and Jakarta.

On Sunday, North Korea held a grand opening ceremony for a new memorial museum in its capital Pyongyang, honoring hundreds of North Korean service members killed while fighting alongside Russian forces against Ukraine in the Kursk border region. The event marked the one-year anniversary of the conclusion of operations to secure the Kursk area, and brought together top leadership from both North Korea and Russia to reaffirm their growing bilateral partnership.

The joint military deployment dates back to April 2025, when Pyongyang and Moscow confirmed that North Korean troops had fought alongside Russian units to repel a Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. Neither country has publicly released an official death toll or full deployment number, but South Korea’s national intelligence agency has estimated that roughly 15,000 North Korean troops were sent to the frontline, with approximately 2,000 of those personnel killed in combat.

North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) confirmed that Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un led the inauguration ceremony, alongside a high-level Russian delegation including Vyacheslav Volodin, Speaker of the State Duma, and Russian Defense Minister Andrei Beloussov. During the event, Kim personally placed soil over the remains of one fallen soldier, laid floral tributes at a mortuary holding other recovered bodies, and joined the Russian officials in signing a commemorative guest book.

In his keynote address, Kim framed the fallen North Korean troops as eternal symbols of the North Korean people’s bravery, saying their legacy would forever fuel the shared victorious march forward for both the Korean and Russian peoples. He lauded the combined force for pushing back against what he described as a U.S.-led Western campaign of hegemonic ambition and military adventurism on the Ukrainian front. In separate talks with Beloussov, Kim reiterated that Pyongyang would offer unwavering support for Moscow’s policies to defend its sovereign rights and national security interests, KCNA reported.

Russia’s top leadership sent a clear message of solidarity through the event. In a letter read aloud by Volodin to attendees, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the new museum would stand as an enduring marker of the friendship and shared purpose binding the two nations. Putin added that he was confident the two countries would continue to deepen their comprehensive strategic partnership in the years ahead. Beloussov also confirmed Moscow’s plan to expand military cooperation, telling Kim that Russia is prepared to sign a formal bilateral military cooperation agreement covering the 2027 to 2031 period.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, North Korea has positioned Moscow as the top priority of its foreign policy, providing both conventional weaponry and frontline troops to support Russia’s war effort. In exchange, defense and international relations analysts widely believe Pyongyang has received critical economic aid and other forms of support from Moscow. The growing alignment has sparked deep alarm in Seoul, Washington and their allied partners, who warn that Russia could share advanced high-tech military technologies that would allow North Korea to accelerate the development of its nuclear weapons and long-range missile programs.

Military analysts have noted that the North Korean troops deployed to Kursk faced early challenges, with many falling vulnerable to Ukrainian drone strikes and artillery fire due to limited modern combat experience and unfamiliarity with the local terrain. However, Ukrainian military and intelligence assessments have concluded that the deployment has delivered significant long-term benefits to Pyongyang: North Korean personnel have gained hands-on, modern frontline combat experience, and they have become a core component of Russia’s strategy to outlast Ukrainian defenses by deploying large ground forces to overwhelm Ukrainian positions in the Kursk campaign.

Stretching across more than 3.4 million square kilometers of the central Pacific Ocean, the small island nation of Kiribati holds an outsize role in the global tuna industry. Despite having a total land area roughly equal to that of New York City, this scattered archipelago of 33 islands sits at the heart of the world’s most productive tuna fishing grounds, which collectively supply more than half of the global tuna catch. For Kiribati, this abundant marine resource is not just a cultural cornerstone — it is the entire backbone of the country’s economy. Unlike larger Pacific neighbors such as Papua New Guinea, Kiribati has almost no other natural resources to draw on: its highest natural elevation above sea level is just two meters, with limited fresh water reserves and virtually no terrestrial mineral or agricultural assets. As a result, revenue from selling tuna fishing licenses to international fleets makes up more than 70% of the country’s total government income, the highest proportional dependence of any nation on Earth, according to official data. Between 2018 and 2022, this revenue equaled roughly 40% of Kiribati’s entire GDP, figures from the International Monetary Fund show. In 2024 alone, license sales generated $137 million for the government, a sum officials describe as a “critical financial lifeline” for the nation of 130,000 people. Today, large fishing vessels from major tuna-consuming nations including Japan, China, the United States, and European Union member states travel to Kiribati’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to harvest the region’s abundant stocks of skipjack, yellowfin, and bigeye tuna. As veteran fisheries specialist Simon Diffey, who has worked on Kiribati for more than 30 years, notes, more than half of all canned tuna sold globally comes from the Western Central Pacific, including Kiribati’s waters. The global tuna industry is currently valued at over $44 billion per year, making Kiribati’s control over its vast EEZ an invaluable economic asset. Yet the same ocean that sustains Kiribati now threatens its very survival, driven by the impacts of human-caused climate change. Warming ocean temperatures are already reshaping tuna migratory patterns, and scientists warn that the tiny nation is at extreme risk of losing its most valuable natural resource. Tuna are extremely sensitive to even small shifts in water temperature, able to detect changes as small as one-tenth of a degree Celsius. As Pacific surface waters warm, research consistently shows that tuna populations are migrating eastward in search of cooler habitats — a shift that would pull stocks permanently out of Kiribati’s EEZ. For Kiribati, this potential migration carries cascading economic and food security risks. If tuna leave the country’s territorial waters, international fleets will no longer purchase fishing licenses, sending government revenue plummeting and creating extreme fiscal volatility. The Pacific Community, a regional development organization, has identified Kiribati as one of the nations worst impacted by projected tuna migration. Preliminary modeling from Kiribati’s Ministry of Fisheries estimates that if global greenhouse gas emissions remain at high levels, the country could lose more than $10 million in annual fishing access fees by 2050. Even in a best-case low-emissions scenario, where overall tuna biomass in Kiribati’s EEZ remains stable, local small-scale fisheries are still projected to see substantial catch declines. The Line Islands, one of Kiribati’s three island groups, could see local catches drop by two-thirds even under low emissions. These declines come as Kiribati’s population grows and rapid urbanization in the capital Tarawa puts additional strain on already limited land and food resources. Fish have long been the primary source of protein for Kiribati’s communities, with the average resident consuming 100 kilograms of fish per year — more than 10 times the average per capita consumption in the United States. As local stocks decline, households are increasingly turning to imported processed foods, which drives up household costs and reduces nutritional quality, especially for remote outer island communities. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warns that this shift is creating a growing food security crisis for the nation. Facing these overlapping threats, Kiribati and international partners are rolling out new adaptation strategies to build resilience and diversify the country’s economy. Last year, the United Nations Green Climate Fund launched a $156.8 million regional adaptation project covering 14 Pacific nations and territories, focused on supporting tuna-dependent economies like Kiribati. The initiative aims to strengthen early warning and stock monitoring systems to help Kiribati better predict tuna migrations, protect food security, and stabilize government revenue. According to Kiribati’s Ministry of Fisheries, the project is expected to provide roughly four million nutritious fish meals annually for local communities. The Kiribati government is also pursuing domestic economic shifts to reduce its dependence on foreign license sales. It is expanding domestic tuna processing and canning facilities to capture more value from its tuna resources, rather than exporting the raw catch via foreign fleets. Officials are also developing ocean aquaculture for species including milkfish, snapper, and sea cucumbers, to both boost domestic food security and create new export opportunities. Beyond the fishing sector, the government is working to diversify national revenue through expanding tourism, developing renewable energy infrastructure, and growing the country’s offshore sovereign wealth fund. “Kiribati retains grounds for optimism and strategic opportunity,” says Riibeta Abeta, permanent secretary for Kiribati’s Ministry of Fisheries. Still, the nation faces an existential threat from the broader impacts of climate change, with even the most ambitious adaptation measures dependent on global action to cut greenhouse gas emissions and slow ocean warming.

Nearly two months after 26-year-old Akash Delison died in a Tamil Nadu government hospital, his body remains unclaimed in a morgue, held hostage by a grieving family’s demand for justice. Akash, a member of India’s marginalized Dalit community who aspired to become a lawyer to serve his people, died on March 8, just 48 hours after he was taken into police custody alongside a friend in an ongoing criminal case. What began as a local tragedy has now reignited national and international scrutiny of India’s long-running crisis of custodial death and police torture, a problem that disproportionately targets the country’s most vulnerable communities.

Akash’s parents, Rajesh and Anandhi Delison, allege their son was brutally tortured by officers during his detention. Anandhi, who visited her son hours before he succumbed to his injuries, told the BBC he had been blindfolded and beaten severely; an autopsy later confirmed more than 20 external and internal injuries, including a fractured right leg, brain hemorrhaging, and swelling of the heart and lungs. Gopi, the second man arrested alongside Akash, remains in judicial custody. Local police have rejected the torture claims, asserting Akash suffered fatal injuries when he jumped off a bridge while attempting to escape custody.

Widespread public outcry over the incident has already led to administrative action: six police officers have been suspended from duty, and the Tamil Nadu state government has ordered a full probe by the state’s top anti-crime agency. Still, Akash’s family refuses to retrieve his body for funeral rites until all officers deemed responsible for his death are taken into custody. Dalit organizations across the state have condemned the killing and thrown their full support behind the family’s campaign for accountability.

Akash’s death is not an isolated incident. It marks the third reported custodial death in Tamil Nadu alone in 2026, putting a fresh spotlight on a pattern of unlawful violence that stretches across the entire country. Just weeks before Akash’s arrest, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) concluded that the 2025 custody death of 27-year-old Ajith Kumar, a temple security guard held in connection with a false robbery complaint in Sivaganga district, was directly caused by police excessive force. Earlier in April, a special court in Madurai handed down death sentences to nine police officers for the 2020 custody killings of a father and son, a case that previously sparked massive nationwide protests.

Official data from India’s federal home ministry underscores the scale of the crisis: between 2025 and March 15, 2026, 170 custodial deaths have been recorded across the country. The northern state of Bihar reported the highest number at 19, followed by Rajasthan with 18 and Uttar Pradesh with 15. Beyond formal custody deaths, rights groups also document widespread extrajudicial “encounter killings,” staged confrontations that police use to eliminate suspects without going through the formal legal process, a practice disproportionately reported in Uttar Pradesh and Assam.

The crisis has drawn sharp condemnation from the international community. In its 2026 Global Torture Index, the World Organisation Against Torture ranked India as a “high risk” country for torture and ill-treatment by security forces, placing it alongside Pakistan, Nigeria, Colombia and Mexico. The report explicitly notes that severe abuse, including beatings and forced confessions, disproportionately targets marginalized groups: Dalits, Adivasi tribal communities, Muslims, LGBTQIA+ people, and informal migrant workers.

In February 2026, United Nations human rights experts sent an open letter to the Indian government calling for independent, transparent investigations into what they described as “alarming allegations of hundreds of extrajudicial killings and torture-related deaths.” The letter raised particular alarm over the normalized practice of “encounters” and “half-encounters,” warning that the routine use of unlawful violence risks eroding the rule of law. To date, Alice Edwards, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, confirmed the Indian government has not responded to the letter, and the 60-day deadline for a reply has expired. The BBC has reached out to India’s federal home ministry, Tamil Nadu’s home secretary, and the state’s police director general for comment on Akash’s case and the broader allegations, but has not received a formal response as of publication.

Legal experts and human rights activists say that while holding individual officers accountable for high-profile cases like Akash’s is a critical step, deep systemic reform is the only way to end the ongoing crisis. India’s constitution and existing criminal code already include formal legal safeguards against custodial abuse, but consistent enforcement remains weak across the country. Anupama Arigala, a New Delhi-based legal consultant, argues that police, magistrates, and prosecutors must shift away from a culture prioritizing arrests and convictions over due process.

“These three parties must carefully analyze if there’s really a need for police or judicial custody, or if the accused can participate in the investigation just as effectively while out on bail,” Arigala explained. She added that magistrates must proactively screen for signs of torture when suspects are brought to court, a step that is often skipped due to overloaded dockets and systemic understaffing that plagues India’s judicial system.

UN experts and activists alike have also called on India to ratify the UN Convention Against Torture, a step that would require the country to pass a standalone national law explicitly criminalizing torture—legislation that does not currently exist on India’s federal books. While activists acknowledge that a new law will not eliminate custodial abuse overnight, they say it would mark a critical formal recognition of the crisis and create a framework for long-term institutional change.

For Rajesh Delison, that change cannot come soon enough. He told the BBC his family has yet to recover from the shock of losing Akash, a young man who worked in his shop while studying to become a lawyer to help his marginalized community. “They have snuffed out the life of an active young man who had big dreams for the future,” he said. For now, his family remains resolved: they will continue to leave Akash’s body in the hospital morgue until they get the justice they have pledged to fight for.