The panicked crew of a cargo ship broadcast a distress signal late on Monday night from their location in the strait of Hormuz. When they managed to disembark from the Greek-owned, Liberian-flagged ship on Tuesday morning, they realised the third engineer was missing. The crews stuck in the strait have had their hopes of departure raised several times, before being dashed. There are still 6,000 seafarers on 500 vessels, encompassing all types of ships, trapped in the Gulf, according to the UN’s International Maritime Organization. For the crews stuck waiting to exit it is like being in “prison”, the head of one of India’s maritime trade unions said.