Brief contact has been made with the 24-man crew on the Marshall Islands-flagged Maersk Tigris ship seized by Iran this week, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
The ship was charted by Rickmers Shipmanagement, based in Singapore, whose spokesman Cor Radings said:
They’re all in relatively good condition, but it’s not a good situation and is still of concern to us,
He added that Iranian guards are keeping the crew in their rooms and eating area. All of the crew members are from Asia and Eastern Europe.
The USS Navy has sent the U.S. Farragut destroyer and three other smaller ships to the Strait of Hormuz (Persian Gulf) in response to Iran’s seizure of the vessel on Tuesday.
Rickmers maintains that the Maersk ship was in international waters when Iranian Revolutionary Navy Guards shot at it and then forced it to the area of the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.