Eleven Indian sailors hurt as a projectile hits MT On Peace in the Strait of Hormuz

A projectile struck the Panama-flagged tanker MT On Peace in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday and injured 12 of the 19 people on board, the Ministry of External Affairs said. Eleven of the injured are Indian. Oman evacuated them to Khasab for treatment. The ministry condemned the attack and said strikes on commercial shipping had to stop.

The statement named the ship and its number: MT On Peace, IMO 9893204. Of the crew of 19, 17 are Indian nationals. The ministry said it had learned that 12 crew members were injured, including 11 Indians, and thanked Omani authorities for the evacuation and for medical care in Khasab. The ship was off the Omani coast while transiting the strait. The ministry did not name the party that fired.

Why this strait is not a side channel

The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow exit from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman. Oil and liquefied gas from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, the Emirates and Qatar move through it in normal times. A tanker hit there is a shipping incident and a price incident at the same time. Tuesday's strike sits inside a wider war that already includes US and Iranian forces, Houthi attacks on Saudi airports, and a Saudi-backed push against the Houthis near Bab al-Mandeb. The ministry's wording stayed on the ship and the crew. It did not attribute the projectile.

Khasab is on Oman's Musandam peninsula, the rocky headland that faces Iran across the strait. Evacuation there means the injured were taken off the ship close to the incident, not sailed back to an Indian port. That is the practical fact for the families. Eleven Indian sailors are in an Omani hospital, not missing. One non-Indian crew member is in the same injured group. Five other Indians on board were not listed among the wounded.

What the ministry asked for, and what it did not say

The statement condemned the attack "earlier today" and said attacks must end. It did not describe the weapon beyond "a projectile". It did not say whether the ship was under management by an Indian company, where it was bound, or what cargo it carried. Those gaps matter for insurance and for any later claim. The IMO number is the item that lets the vessel be tracked in public registries without relying on the flag alone. Panama is the flag. The crew is overwhelmingly Indian. The medical response is Omani.

Indian seafarers staff a large share of the world's commercial fleet. A strike that injures 11 of them in one transit is the sort of incident the ministry answers in public because the next ship through the same water may have a similar crew list. The demand that attacks stop is a diplomatic line. The operational line is narrower: Oman has the wounded, the ship has an IMO number, and 17 Indians were aboard when the projectile hit.

The pattern around the same water

Tuesday's strike is not the only recent blow to commercial traffic linked to this war. Bulgarian authorities have been searching after drones sank a cargo ship off the Black Sea coast, and a Turkish grain ship was lost off Romania a day earlier. Those are different seas and, on the public record, different attackers. The common point for Indian readers is the crew. Seven Indian sailors were among those rescued from the Able off Bulgaria. Eleven more were wounded off Oman on Tuesday. The routes are not the same. The exposure is.

Until the ministry or the flag state names a attacker, the honest account stops at the projectile, the IMO number, the injury count and the hospital in Khasab. Shipping in the strait will read the incident as a reason to reprice a transit. The families will read it as 11 names in an Omani ward.