- Muhammad Hammad Obaida was in engine room when tanker was hit near Strait of Hormuz
- Three-year-old son still asks family to connect him with father as they await news of his fate
KARACHI: Nearly a week after Pakistani seafarer Muhammad Hammad Obaida went missing from an oil tanker attacked near Oman, his family is still waiting to learn whether he survived.
Obaida, 34, a third engineer aboard the Panama-flagged oil tanker EL GAIA, was in the engine room when the vessel was attacked on Sept. 13 at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, according to his family. Omani authorities said 23 crew members were evacuated while two seafarers remained missing.
“Right now, it feels as though we are still at zero,” Obaida’s mother, Sarwat Zareen Athar, told Arab News at the family’s home in Karachi.
“We are simply waiting. We are praying that Allah shows us some miracle. At least the [foreign] ministry should reassure us or tell us what steps they have taken to find out what has happened.”
Oman’s Maritime Security Center said the strike triggered a fire in the vessel’s engine room that was later extinguished.
The attack came amid growing dangers to commercial shipping in and around the Strait of Hormuz since the latest Middle East conflict began on Feb. 28. The International Maritime Organization said it had verified 80 attacks on international shipping by Sept. 15, killing at least 22 seafarers.
LAST CALL HOME
Obaida’s younger brother, Muhammad Fawwad Obaida, said the seafarer left Pakistan on Sept. 6 and boarded the vessel in Oman the following day.
A maritime professional for 14 years, Obaida last spoke to his mother on the night of Sept. 12, a day before the family learned about the attack.
“He told her that their vessel was moving toward Malaysia from the UAE,” Fawwad told Arab News.
“He said, ‘Mummy, I will contact you after around 15 days, or perhaps earlier if I get a signal.’”
It was only after the attack that the family learned where Obaida had been when the vessel was struck.
“The crew members who survived later informed us that my brother was inside the engine room at the time,” Fawwad said.
Pakistan’s Foreign Office said this week that one Pakistani national who had been in the engine room remained missing and that his whereabouts had not yet been established.
“I do not know where he is, what condition he is in or what has happened to him,” Fawwad said.
“Officially, neither any institution of the Government of Pakistan, nor the embassy in Oman, nor the shipping company has confirmed anything to us. His status is still missing.”
WAITING FOR ANSWERS
Abdul Manan, Pakistan’s Community Welfare Attaché in Oman, told Arab News that Pakistani authorities were in continuous contact with Obaida’s family.
Citing informal information, Manan said the vessel had been taken to Jebel Ali port in the UAE and that a final determination on the status of the missing seafarers was expected to be communicated by UAE authorities to Pakistan’s mission there.
Arab News contacted Pakistan’s mission in the UAE to confirm the vessel’s location and seek an update on Obaida but received no response by the time of publication.
‘MY BABA IS ON THE SHIP’
Obaida has a three-year-old son, while his wife is expecting their second child.
Fawwad said his nephew was too young to understand why his father was no longer appearing on video calls.
“He looks at his father’s pictures and keeps saying ‘Baba,’” Fawwad said. “He asks us to connect him through a video call.”
Athar said her grandson still believed his father was simply away at sea, as he had been during previous voyages.
“Sometimes he says, ‘No, my Baba is on the ship,’” Athar said. “When he says things like that, it makes us even more heartbroken.”
For Athar, the hardest part is not knowing whether she is waiting for her son to return or grieving a loss that has yet to be confirmed.
“If my son has died, then we accept Allah’s will,” she said. “But those responsible for dealing with this matter should fully inform me.”
“Whatever progress has been made, they should tell us.”
