Two Sailors Killed on Saudi Ship in Hormuz

Two Sailors Killed on Saudi Ship in Hormuz

The News

Saudi Arabia's national shipping company, Bahri, said Wednesday that two Filipino seafarers were killed in a security incident aboard its vessel SIDR while the ship was transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Aug. 31.

Bahri said the ship was struck by an unknown object, according to the Reuters report carried by the Jerusalem Post.

The entire account of the deaths comes from the company. No government has confirmed it independently, and no party has claimed responsibility for hitting the ship.

Timeline

Aug. 31

The incident aboard the SIDR takes place as the vessel transits the Strait of Hormuz, according to Bahri.

Sept. 2, morning

Bahri says two Filipino crew members were killed. Reuters moves the story at 9:17 a.m. GMT.

Sept. 2, later in the day

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says two oil tankers struck sea mines and were disabled while trying to transit the strait. The Guards said the tankers were forced to disembark their crews and were placed in the hands of U.S. operatives to pass through what the statement called an "illegal route," despite earlier warnings from the Guards' navy about the dangers of the mined passage.

Neither Reuters nor the Jerusalem Post reported that the Guards named the SIDR or linked their statement to Bahri's.

Reactions

Bahri, which is majority state-owned, described the event as a security incident and identified the dead as Filipino seafarers. The company did not, in the reporting available, say who or what struck the vessel.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards did not address the Bahri deaths. Their statement was about mine strikes on two tankers and blamed the ships for crossing a waterway the Guards say they had warned against.

No U.S., Saudi or Philippine official response has been reported.

What's Next

The open questions are whether any government confirms Bahri's account, whether the SIDR is one of the two tankers Iran described, and what the Philippine government says about two of its nationals dying at sea.

Reuters has labeled the story as still developing.

More

The Frank is carrying this as a company statement, not an established fact pattern. Two sources have it, both running the same Reuters copy. If it is confirmed, these are the first reported crew deaths in the Hormuz shipping confrontation.

We will update this story as verification comes in.

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