Three Thai sailors remain missing after a Thai ship was attacked by Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz yesterday, as Asia grapples with the intensifying fallout from the ongoing war in the Middle East.

The Royal Thai Navy (RTN) said in a statement that the Thai-flagged bulk carrier Mayuree Naree was struck by Iranian missiles 11 nautical miles north of Oman, at around 11 a.m., en route from Khalifa Port in the United Arab Emirates to the port of Kandla in Gujarat, India. Two projectiles hit the ship above the waterline, “triggering explosions at the stern and in the engine room and igniting a blaze,” the Bangkok Post reported.

Precious Shipping Plc, the Thai transport company that operated the vessel, said that 20 crew members out of the 23 aboard, abandoned ​the vessel in a lifeboat ​and ⁠were rescued by the Omani navy, the Bangkok Post reported. The firm said that three remaining crew members, who had been working in the engine compartment at the time of the attack, were unaccounted for.

According to the RTN, Omani naval units were working to assist the remaining three crew members, and that it would “closely monitor the situation and expedite coordination with relevant agencies both domestically and internationally to ensure the swift and safe rescue of the 23 Thai crew members.”

Images released by the RTN show smoke billowing from the stern of the 30,000-tonne vessel.

The Mayuree Naree was one of three cargo vessels that were attacked in the Strait yesterday, as Iran launched another round of retaliatory attacks across the Gulf and tightened its hold over the crucial international shipping lane.

In a statement later on Wednesday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) admitted responsibility for two of the attacks, saying that the Mayuree Naree and the Israeli-owned and Liberian-flagged Express Rome, “were hit by Iranian projectiles and stopped after ignoring the warnings of the IRGC naval forces.”

Maritime security firms cited by Reuters say at least 14 vessels have been struck in the region since the war began with joint U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28.

The attack is just one sign of how the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran is already impacting Southeast Asia. The region, which remains highly dependent on oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from the Gulf, is currently reeling from the sudden spike in the price of oil, taking a range of measures to quell demand for increasingly scare fuels.

Thailand was also disproportionately affected by the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which began with the latter’s deadly incursions into southern Israel in October 2023 and resulted in Israeli’s destruction of much of Gaza. Forty-six Thai nationals were killed in the conflict, most of them during Hamas’ attack into southern Israel. There are currently around 110,000 Thai workers in the Middle East.