Eight US navy personnel assigned to the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group have attempted suicide since the start of their lengthy deployment as part of the US war on Iran, Hung Cao, the acting US navy secretary, revealed in a letter to the US senator Kirsten Gillibrand on Tuesday.

“Since the beginning of Lincoln’s deployment, there have been a total of eight suicide attempts across the strike group,” Cao wrote, responding on behalf of US defense secretary Pete Hegseth to Gillibrand’s inquiry about the quality of life aboard the fleet. “This number includes the Lincoln crew and sailors from the carrier airwing, strike group and destroyer squadron staff, escorting destroyers and all embarked aviation squadrons.”

CNN first reported on Cao’s response to Gillibrand.

The crew of the Lincoln, which was at sea for 286 days, disembarked on 1 September in a Thai resort city. The crew had been scheduled to wrap their deployment in May, but it was extended amid the unresolved war.

In August, two military newspapers reported on sailors’ deteriorating mental health, including multiple attempts to jump overboard. The reports prompted outcry from Democrats, who called for an investigation of the conditions onboard.

In March, one sailor’s attempt to go overboard was thwarted by shipmates, according to Cao. In August, one sailor did go overboard. The individual was rescued and received medical treatment, before being “transferred off-ship for follow-up care”, Cao wrote.

MS Now also reported in August on alarming allegations of mold in the ship’s showers and dwindling supplies of food and soap, among other basic necessities.

The number of entrée options was temporarily reduced from two to one, Cao wrote in his letter, a measure “implemented to optimize endurance and ensure sustained time on station”. He said four nutritionally balanced meals were served daily.

He acknowledged certain delays in replenishing crew supplies.

As details of low morale trickled out of the Lincoln, Hegseth downplayed the media coverage, saying news outlets “completely misrepresented” the situation. “We make sure every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment,” he told reporters in August.

“What Trump and Secretary Hegseth dismissed as ‘fake news’ turned out to be serious and deteriorating conditions for our service members,” Gillibrand said in a Wednesday statement to the Guardian. “Our troops and their families make immense sacrifices every single day, yet the president dismissed them with open disrespect. That this administration can find endless taxpayer dollars for bombs, ballrooms, and billionaires, but cannot take care of our service members, is completely unacceptable.”

“The Navy and the Navy secretary are very committed to sailor health, wellbeing and morale,” a US navy official told the Guardian on Wednesday.

Here is the complete text of Cao’s response to Gillibrand’s questions: