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Born to landless Indian farmers, Sunil Pooniya thought a job at sea would be his ticket out of poverty, instead his first voyage saw him diving into the ocean to escape a deadly attack driven by the US-Israel war on Iran.
For hundreds of thousands of Indians, merchant shipping jobs are a lucrative proposition despite the inherent risks.
The attack on Pooniya’s ship killed two fellow Indians — the country’s sailors are among the highest merchant maritime casualties from the Middle East war.
Dalip Singh and Ashish Kumar Singh were the first Indians killed in the conflict, after their oil tanker was hit on March 1 by projectiles off Oman’s Khasab port.
