Each morning, union representative Mohamed Arrachedi wakes up to dozens of WhatsApp messages and missed calls: a sailor on a cargo ship in the Persian Gulf hasn’t been paid for months; on another vessel, people are running out of food. As the regional coordinator for the International Transport Workers’ Federation, Arrachedi is one of the few people to whom sailors stranded since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz can turn for help.
So far, Arrachedi and his team have received more than 2,000 requests for assistance. Conditions in the strait, he said, are getting worse. “There is absolutely no precedent to what is happening now,” said Arrachedi. Watch the video above to see how one man responds to the daily calls for help from sailors facing bombs and dwindling supplies.
Write to Belle Cushing at belle.cushing@wsj.com and Denise Blostein at Denise.Blostein@wsj.com
