A 45-year-old Indian sailor, Prakash Singh, made a final phone call to his wife in Mumbai just hours before a US naval strike destroyed his cargo vessel in the Persian Gulf. Sources confirm the vessel, the MV Oceanic Voyager, was hit by a missile from a US destroyer on Thursday evening. Singh’s wife, Meera, told this reporter that her husband said, ‘The Americans are coming. I love you.’ Moments later, the ship was engulfed in flames. Only three of the 28 crew survived.
The UK Foreign Office has now issued a statement calling for a ‘full and transparent investigation’ into the incident. A senior diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: ‘This is a grave matter. We cannot have civilian sailors caught in the crossfire of regional tensions.’
Documents uncovered by this newspaper show that the MV Oceanic Voyager was registered in Panama but owned by a Dubai-based shell company linked to a known sanctions evader. However, the crew were all Indian nationals. The US military claims the vessel was ‘hostile’ and failed to respond to warnings. But survivors’ accounts contradict this. One crew member, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said: ‘We were just delivering grain. There were no weapons. The captain tried to radio them, but they fired anyway.’
The sinking marks a significant escalation in the shadow war between the US and Iranian-backed forces in the region. The UK’s call for accountability is rare: it signals London’s unease with Washington’s rules of engagement. ‘The British are worried about their own commercial vessels,’ said a naval analyst. ‘If the US can hit a civilian ship by mistake, no one is safe.’
As of tonight, the US Navy has not responded to requests for comment. Prakash Singh’s body has not been recovered. His wife waits in their cramped apartment in Dongri, clutching his last text message: ‘Don’t worry. I will come back.’ He won’t.
