They (the crew) were preparing food and delivering meals to cabins, leading some critics to charge they were inadvertently spreading the virus throughout the ship, which has seen more than 600 cases of the potentially deadly COVID-19 disease.

As they have been in close contact with possibly infected passengers, the crew is expected to undergo a 14-day quarantine starting when the last passenger leaves the ship.

Crew have generally been reticent to speak to media, apparently concerned for their jobs, but some have broken their silence to describe difficult conditions and fear on board.

Sonali Thakkar, a 24-year-old security officer on board, told AFP in an interview crews were sleeping two to a cabin, sharing washrooms and eating together, “so the disease can spread very easily.”

“We do have a lot of fear, me and my colleagues, more than 1000 crew. We’ve been working since the quarantine started. As the days pass and the number of patients increase, the crew is feeling more afraid,” she said.

“They are scared that it can spread really fast and all we want is tests to be done and to be separated from those who are positive. We don’t want to stay on board.”

Her father Dinesh said: “Sonali is stuck in a small windowless room on the cruise and is very scared... We speak to her every day trying to calm her.”

“Why did the government wait for so long as more and more people got infected? She should have been rescued with other Indians from the cruise long ago. This is very wrong,” he told AFP.