Three former crew members of a Thai cargo ship hit by a missile in the Strait of Hormuz in March this year have filed a lawsuit against the vessel’s operating company, alleging labour-rights violations and unfair dismissal. The case was filed on Friday at the Central Labour Court in Bangkok, the Associated Press (AP) reported. According to the case documents, the Thai ship “Mayuri Nari” came under a missile attack in northern Oman on March 11.
The remaining 20 crew members were later rescued and brought back to Thailand. The three sailors who returned unharmed — Paniti Tumkao, Noppadon Wongjuvan and Surades Manpuyen — filed the case against two affiliates of Precious Shipping Company and the ship’s captain. The sailors’ lawyer, Kunnapat Singhathong, said that by operating the vessel through a dangerous waterway like the Strait of Hormuz despite acute security risks, the defendants had put the sailors’ lives in extreme danger.
After the ship was disabled in the attack, the three were also unfairly dismissed before their nine-month contracts expired, the suit says. They were paid just two months’ wages in compensation, which it calls wholly inadequate — because, since the attack, all three have suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, leaving them without the mental or physical capacity to work at sea in the foreseeable future.
Each is claiming more than 1 million baht (about US$30,000) in compensation. Paniti, who had worked for the company for more than a decade, said: “Any loud noise now makes me flinch violently. I can’t do any work now, and I have to take medication regularly.” Precious Shipping Company had not commented on the case as of writing.
Since war broke out between the United States and Iran on February 28, the Strait of Hormuz — one of the main arteries of global trade — has been completely blocked, triggering a severe fuel crisis across Asia. Tens of thousands of sailors and their families from Asian countries such as India, the Philippines and Thailand are paying a heavy human price for the war. On Wednesday, the secretary-general of the UN’s International Maritime Organization, Arsenio Dominguez, expressed deep concern in a statement: “This is not merely a matter of shipping statistics. Behind these numbers are living sailors and their families, who are becoming the cruel victims of this conflict.”
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report