"I felt the whole ship shake. I thought there'd been some fault with the engine. But as soon as I stepped outside of my room, there was another explosion."
The report indicates that “I felt the whole ship shake. I thought there’d been some fault with the engine. But as soon as I stepped outside of my room, there was another explosion.”
It further notes that sunil Puniya, 26, was on his first job at sea when a missile struck the oil tanker Skylight in the early hours of 1 March.
The US-sanctioned vessel had travelled from Dubai and was nearing the Strait of Hormuz – one of the world’s busiest shipping routes. Skylight was the first commercial vessel to be struck after the US-Israel war with Iran erupted in the region.
At the time of the attack, Sunil was asleep in his cabin on the third floor. He woke to find the ship engulfed in chaos. The missile had struck the engine room, sparking a fire that rapidly spread through the vessel.
“There was a complete blackout, and smoke had spread everywhere,” he said. “Everyone was having trouble breathing.”
“There were some sailors from South India who were crying and making panicked calls home. I told them to stop calling and helped bring them up on to the deck.”
But by the time they reached the deck the fire was already spreading.
“There was oil everywhere,” Sunil said. “The flames were coming towards us so we jumped into the sea.”
The Oman Navy launched a rescue operation within an hour of the attack and pulled survivors from the water. But not everyone could be accounted for.
“As soon as I realised Dalip wasn’t there, that’s when it hit me,” Sunil said. “I started panicking. I kept thinking: how will I answer to his family?”
Dalip Rathore, 25, had joined Skylight the day after Sunil. India is one of the biggest suppliers of seafarers to the global shipping industry but Dalip and Sunil discovered they were from neighbouring villages in Rajasthan and soon became close friends.
“There were network issues on the ship, so we couldn’t call home very often,” Sunil said. “In those moments, Dalip was there for me. He became like a brother.”
Hours before the strike, Dalip had taken over Sunil’s watch in the engine room – the area hit by the missile.
Dalip and the ship’s captain, Ashish Kumar, were both killed in the attack. While some of the captain’s remains were recovered, Dalip’s body has never been found.
