External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Liberia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Sara Beysolow Nyanti launched the Group of Friends on Safety and Security of Shipping and Seafarers on Friday, 25 September, on the margins of the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York. India Today, The Hindu and the UN’s own unofficial transcript of the meeting are the primaries for the launch. Jaishankar then carried the same line into the General Debate, telling the Assembly that the targeting of commercial shipping and seafarers in international waters is “simply unacceptable” and that such attacks have taken place “in the Gulf, and from the Red Sea to the Black Sea.” The Indian Express published that General Debate account on Sunday, 27 September. This note is not a rewrite of the 24 September Cape Dao casualty file, the earlier El Gaia NAVAREA naming, or Thursday’s 80-country call for Hormuz to reopen without tolls. It is the first dedicated account of a flag-and-labour coalition that India and Liberia have now put on the UN calendar.
The pairing is deliberate. Jaishankar told the inaugural meeting that India, as a major source of seafarers, and Liberia, as the largest shipping registry, had come together because the two sides of the same commercial ship rarely sit in one capital. Seafarers often hold a different nationality from the flag the hull flies. That split is why a casualty on an Antigua and Barbuda Capesize or a Panama products tanker becomes an Indian consular file, an Omani search-and-rescue file and a flag investigation at the same time, and why no single existing forum has been able to close the gap. Liberia’s foreign minister put the same split in flag-state language: Liberia represents the world’s largest open registry by tonnage; India supplies officers and ratings. Nyanti said the idea had been bilateral in New Delhi a few weeks earlier and was now a multilateral platform with more than 20 countries in the room. The unofficial UN transcript recorded about 23 member states at the first sitting, many at ministerial or vice-ministerial level. The Times of India later named Russia, Germany and Japan among the other participants. Outlook put the first-meeting attendance at 25 countries. Those counts are not a membership list and not a Security Council product.
Jaishankar’s casualty list at the launch was specific and, for this blog, already partly filed. Two days earlier, he said, the Antigua and Barbuda-flagged bulk carrier MV Cape Dao had been attacked in the Gulf of Oman and an Indian sailor had been killed. Ten days before that, the Panama-flagged oil tanker El Gaia had been struck in the Strait of Hormuz and an Indian crew member had gone missing. He then added two Black Sea files that operators should not collapse into the Hormuz series: MV Omorphi, hit in Russian territorial waters on 18 July, with an Indian chief officer killed; and MV Golden Leo, struck the following day after leaving Odesa, with four Indian seafarers killed. “These, regrettably, are no longer exceptional occurrences,” he said. The examples involved Indian sailors, he added, but seafarers of many other nations have been casualties this year. From the Black Sea to the Red Sea to the Gulf, attacks on civilian shipping had become “simply indefensible.” The instruction to the room was not a sailing window. It was to “close ranks and deter such attacks.”
A friends group is a diplomatic channel, not a naval product
Jaishankar described the group as an inclusive, voluntary and action-oriented platform. It is meant to deepen cooperation among member states and other stakeholders, promote an exchange of views and practical cooperation, and complement existing international frameworks rather than replace them. Members would take the issue into plurilateral and multilateral formats, including the United Nations, the International Maritime Organization and the International Labour Organization. Terms of reference and modalities were left open. India and Liberia said they wanted to chart the group’s trajectory in a consultative way after hearing the first-meeting interventions. That is a work programme, not an instrument. It does not create a convoy, a listed-area change, a war-risk discount or a Hormuz transit rule. It also does not enact Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BRICS proposal for a Seafarers Emergency Support Network, which Jaishankar recalled as a complementary idea: a link between maritime authorities and embassies that could move distress alerts, medical assistance, family contact and evacuation support. The network remains a proposal. The Group of Friends is the forum that has actually been stood up.
The first-meeting interventions show where operators should expect the group to press, and where it will not help a master on passage. Greece’s foreign minister, Georgios Gerapetritis, tied the launch to freedom of navigation under UNCLOS, to the IMO’s security work and to the Maritime Labour Convention’s twentieth year. He said maritime security will feature again during Greece’s Security Council presidency in October. The Philippines’ foreign secretary, Maria Teresa Lazaro, said more than 20,000 seafarers, port workers and offshore crews have already been affected by the current crises, invited states that have not done so to endorse the Manila Declaration on seafarers’ human rights, safety and wellbeing, and linked the group to Workstream 7 on naval warfare under the initiative to galvanise political commitment to international humanitarian law. Panama’s deputy foreign minister underlined flag-state responsibility and the Panama Canal’s interest in keeping a waterway open. Vietnam asked India and Liberia to circulate draft terms of reference and argued for a network of national focal points for emergency assistance, crew change and repatriation. Sierra Leone used the meeting to put unpaid end-of-service claims for older seafarer cohorts onto a welfare agenda that is usually crowded out by kinetic files. Those are useful signals for manning states and flags. None of them is a UKMTO, JMIC or NAVAREA product, and none of them changes the BMP, citadel or next-of-kin language a company already owes the people on board Cape Dao, El Gaia or the next unnamed hull.
The General Debate line does not reopen a strait
Jaishankar’s General Debate remarks, carried by the Indian Express on Sunday, widened the same file from a friends-group launch into an Assembly statement. He said countries far from conflicts are being penalised for no fault of theirs, and that those most affected often have the least say. He linked that directly to the war in the Gulf: “This year, we are witnessing a conflict in the Gulf, one that is exacerbating an already difficult situation. We remain deeply concerned over continuing hostilities.” Ships and crew passing through international waters have become targets. India, he said, had joined Liberia and 23 other partners to rally opinion against that targeting. “We must ensure that the safety and security of shipping and seafarers is never compromised. Scrupulously observing international law is an integral element of that endeavour.” He also called on all sides to show restraint, reduce tensions, protect civilians and keep energy and trade flowing. That is a political ask. It is not a confirmation that Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb or the Black Sea high seas have become safer, and it is not a substitute for the 80-country no-toll statement already covered on 25 September. Operators who employ Indian, Filipino, Russian, Ukrainian or other exposed ratings should treat Sunday’s speech as confirmation that crew-nationality risk is now being argued in the Assembly, not as cover for a voyage that still sits inside a SEVERE JMIC rating or a JWLA-035 Black Sea item.
The operational split that the group is trying to name is the one companies already live with. A casualty is a flag file, a class file, a P&I file, an ISM designated-person file, a manning-state consular file and, if the hull is in a listed area, a war-risk and next-of-kin file. When those desks do not talk, families wait, crew changes slip and the next ship with the same nationality mix sails on the same risk assessment. Jaishankar listed prolonged confinement, delayed crew changes and repatriation, separation from families and psychological distress alongside the lethal attacks. Nyanti added armed attacks, piracy, drone incursions, cyber disruptions and illicit fleets. Those are not new hazards. What is new is a UN-adjacent group co-chaired by the largest labour supplier and the largest registry, with Greece, the Philippines, Panama and other flags and labour states already on the record that they intend to use it. Until terms of reference exist, the practical use for an operator is narrower: know which capitals will pick up the phone when the next Indian or Filipino rating is killed or missing on a third-country hull, and do not brief the group as if it were an escort or a legal shield.
What Operators Should Note
- Treat the Group of Friends as a diplomatic channel, not a security product. India and Liberia are co-chairs of a voluntary UN-adjacent platform. It complements IMO, ILO and UNCLOS work. It does not create a convoy, a Hormuz rule, a listed-area change or a war-risk discount. Do not brief Friday’s launch or Sunday’s General Debate line as a sailing window.
- Keep Cape Dao and El Gaia on their own casualty files. Jaishankar used both as the reason the group exists. The 24 September UKMTO Cape Dao note and the earlier El Gaia NAVAREA naming remain the operational records. This article does not reopen those hulls. If you had Indian ratings on either ship, the consular and next-of-kin work is unchanged.
- Add Omorphi and Golden Leo to the Indian-casualty ledger if they are not already there. Jaishankar cited an Indian chief officer killed on Omorphi in Russian territorial waters on 18 July and four Indian seafarers killed on Golden Leo the day after it left Odesa. Those are Black Sea files, not Hormuz files. Manning agents and DPAs with Indian officers in the basin should confirm whether those names are already in the company welfare log.
- Rewrite crew-nationality response for mixed-flag ships. The group’s premise is that labour state and flag state are often different. An Indian or Filipino fatality on a Panama, Liberia or Antigua hull needs a simultaneous call list: flag, class, P&I, DPA, manning agent, and the labour-state embassy in the nearest coastal state. Test that list this week on every ship with Indian or Filipino ratings in Hormuz, the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb, the Gulf of Aden, Somalia or the Black Sea.
- Watch the terms of reference, not the communiqué. Vietnam asked India and Liberia to circulate a draft. Greece flagged an October Security Council presidency. The Philippines pointed to the Manila Declaration and IHL Workstream 7. Until a TOR exists, the only actionable proposal on the table is Modi’s still-unbuilt Seafarers Emergency Support Network for distress alerts, medical help, family contact and evacuation. Do not treat that proposal as a live hotline.
- Do not merge this group with Thursday’s 80-country no-toll statement. The Bahrain-read joint statement is a Hormuz and UNCLOS political file already covered on 25 September. The India–Liberia group is a seafarer-and-registry file. They share a week and a building. They are not the same instrument, and neither is a substitute for UKMTO, JMIC, MSCIO or a club notice.
- Expect more flag and labour-state questions after the next casualty. A group that includes major registries and major labour suppliers will be asked, after the next named death, what it actually did. Companies should already be able to show realistic risk assessments, refusal-of-voyage language where manning-state rules require it, and a welfare trail that does not wait for a UN paragraph.
Regulas Shipping will keep lining Jaishankar’s Group of Friends launch and General Debate remarks against the existing Cape Dao, El Gaia and Black Sea casualty files so operators can treat a UN seafarer coalition as a diplomatic channel, not as cover for a voyage that is still being priced as a war.
