UN maritime agency: about 6,000 seafarers stranded at the Strait of Hormuz

The UN's shipping agency is no longer only describing the danger in the Strait of Hormuz. It is telling companies to keep their vessels and crews away from it.

Arsenio Dominguez, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization, said in an interview that conditions in the area are critical and show no sign of easing, and that ships face what he called a double blockade, Marine Insight reported. About 6,000 seafarers are still aboard ships in and around the strait while the United States and Iran trade accusations over the treatment of crews there.

Key numbers

• 6,000 seafarers stranded on vessels near the strait, according to the IMO
• 113 attacks or attempted attacks on ships recorded in the IMO's public registry as of 15 October
• 24 seafarers killed since the conflict began in February
• 24 ships attacked in the two weeks before the IMO chief spoke, the heaviest such stretch since February

Two Singapore-registered ships were hit in two days

The GFS Pride and the GFS Giselle, both on the Singapore registry, were struck by a projectile on 13 and 14 October. The Pride sank. All 21 of its crew were rescued. The Giselle was left with hull damage and is under repair at an anchorage; its 22 crew members were taken off.

Those two cases are the concrete version of the registry's running total. The conflict began in February, after the United States and Israel struck Iran, and the pace of incidents has risen since. The US Navy has described the threat to shipping in the region as severe.

For anyone moving cargo, the practical effect is that a strategic waterway now carries an explicit warning from the body that sets global shipping rules. Vessels that stay out wait elsewhere; vessels that go through do so against that advice.

The two sides give different accounts of the same radio channel

VHF Channel 16 is the international distress and calling frequency, the one a ship uses when it needs help. US officials said the military has told vessels crossing the strait to use Channel 16, or to contact US authorities directly, if they want American assistance.

Iran's envoy to the IMO, Seyed Ali Mousavi, gave a different reading. He said the US Navy has used the same channel to threaten Iranian ships and crews, and to apply what he called psychological pressure on civilian seafarers.

CENTCOM said in an official release in July that it would help other vessels while maintaining a blockade of Iranian ships, and said more recently that it speaks to ships attempting the crossing and issues repeated warnings before firing on them. None of the reports available here independently verify either side's account of how Channel 16 has been used.

Iran's Foreign Minister, Abbas Araqchi, said Tehran would reopen the strait within a week if Washington took its demands into account and worked toward an agreement. No date was attached to that condition in the reports.

Hellenic Shipping News carried the same figure of around 6,000 trapped crew, attributing it to the head of the UN agency, in its report on Friday.