V. Pandiselvi, the mother of Indian sailor Naveen Kumar, has not heard from her son for more than six months yet she still clings to hope he will return, crying as she replays old voice notes.
Kumar was one of six crew members assigned to work on two Iran-linked cargo vessels last seen in Iranian waters in May before disappearing. The vessels' fate is still unclear.
Commercial ships have come under fire since the US-Israeli war on Iran began on February 28. Tehran attacked ships to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz and the US in turn struck Iran-linked ships to impose a blockade on Iranian ports.
The UN's International Maritime Organisation has confirmed 130 "incidents" – mainly attacks – in the region since the conflict began, with at least 25 seafarers killed.
"We cannot bear this pain," Pandiselvi, 45, told Reuters from her one-bedroom house in the city of Dindigul in southern India's Tamil Nadu state, struggling to keep her composure.
"You don't need anyone to tell you what a parent would go through if they were to lose their child. We appeal to everyone involved to please come forward and help us."
Reuters spoke to shipping sources, Iraqi officials and the families of missing sailors in Iraq's Basra and India's Tamil Nadu state to reveal the human cost of Hormuz attacks.
The 23-year-old Kumar's family took on considerable debt for him to complete a marine course and pursue his dream of working as a sailor, after which he left for a six-month crew contract he was told was based in Dubai. A week in, he found himself in Iran, to the consternation of his family.
Even before war broke out three months later, Kumar's family was desperately trying to repatriate him. Then came radio silence.
"My mental condition had deteriorated into madness, I sent desperate messages," Pandiselvi said, adding she was sending him voice notes without any replies to a number she had saved as "Naveen Mariner" with an anchor emoji.
The family keeps the line active in hope their son picks up. A neighbour described her as listening to messages over and over, in tears.
"A terrifying question mark hangs over his fate: Is he still on that ship, or has something terrible happened to him? It's causing a lot of confusion. Every passing minute is agony," Pandiselvi said.
Kumar had been deployed to the vessels Bridge 1 and Bridge 2, which disappeared around May 9. The two ships were not on the IMO's list of incidents.
Iraq said in May it was monitoring the disappearance of the two vessels, which flew the Bolivian flag. No distress signals were received. Persian Gulf ports requested information after communications with the crew were lost.
Khaled Saad al-Thaalibi, who heads the Iraqi maritime foundation in Basra, told Reuters the latest available information indicated the vessels' automatic identification system (AIS) transmitted their last known position approximately eight nautical miles from Iran's Kish Island on May 9 at 16:50.
"We called the agent in Iran but he told us that he knew nothing about the incident and on the following day the Iranian search and rescue tried to look for the vessels but they found nothing," Thaalibi told Reuters from his office in Basra.
"We don't know if the vessels sunk or were confiscated by a country."
The other Bridge 1 and Bridge 2 crew members missing are three Iraqis, one Pakistani and another Indian.
Sources familiar with the matter said the vessels were involved in Iranian trade and carrying steel.
Haider Rahman al-Mayahi, a 22-year-old Iraqi sailor, was on the crew, his brother Youssef Rahman said.
"He left behind a one-year-old daughter and a father who suffered a stroke from the grief of his disappearance," he told Reuters, breaking down in tears.
Al-Mayahi's family travelled to Iran seeking answers. They located the vessels' owner, whom they identified only as an Iranian who told them he had no information on the vessels.
The family received conflicting theories about the vessels. Some shipping sources said they may have been struck by the US and sunk immediately while others speculated the crew had been detained by a gulf state or Iran.
The Iranian agent who hired the Iraqi sailors did not respond to phone calls from Reuters.
Kumar's family took out around INR1.5 million ($16,000) in loans for him to complete his maritime training course and is now struggling with the financial burden.
They contacted the local agency that hired Kumar, Mumbai-based firm Lascar Marine, initially receiving assurances he would return soon. People from the agency later told the family they had no information. After that, calls went unanswered, the family said.
The agency did not reply to repeated calls from Reuters.
An order dated May 22, published on a government website, showed India's Seamen's Employment Office withdrew the recruitment licence of Lascar Marine Services and barred its past and present directors from maritime business for five years, citing repeated failures to repatriate seafarers — including Kumar — or pay their wages.
The director of Seamen's Employment Office did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Crew working aboard ships are usually contracted by agents like Lascar Marine and hired on six-month contracts. Since the Iran war, costs of hiring sailors have tripled with many working just one journey as risks mount.
One Dubai-based shipper told Reuters a crew member may make what they used to make in seven months in only two and then opt to go home. A captain, the highest paid crew member on a vessel, could make around $8,000 to $13,000 a month before the conflict. Now they can earn three times that.
"They ask for three months' pay per month but after seeing what a journey entails they sometimes quit after one trip," the shipper said.
For Pandiselvi, Kumar's mother, the allure of good pay is now meaningless.
"We worked tirelessly to secure our children's careers and future," she said. "Now, seeing everything that has happened, we are left wondering what our lives have come to."
(Reporting by Maha El Dahan in Dubai, Praveen Paramsivam in Dindigul, India, Aref Mohammed and Mohammed Atti in Basra, Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)