Breaking news: The International Maritime Organization says 115 ships carrying roughly 2,500 crew members left the Gulf before the UN maritime agency froze its Strait of Hormuz evacuation plan after a vessel was attacked near Oman.
The count, reported by UN News and The National, is the clearest measure so far of a rescue operation meant to move thousands of stranded seafarers out of one of the world’s most important waterways. IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said the agency paused the operation after the container ship Ever Lovely was struck while transiting the area.
The IMO said in its own statement that the attacked vessel did not move under the agency’s evacuation framework. Dominguez said the pause was needed to reconfirm safety guarantees for ships on the evacuation list and for others still in the region.
Why this is a new angle
List25 has already covered the U.S.-Iran strike exchange, Bahrain’s drone accusation, and the tanker incident. The new development is the scale of the evacuation itself: 115 vessels and about 2,500 seafarers made it out before the operation froze, while roughly 600 ships and 11,000 sailors still need safe passage, according to The National.
That turns the Hormuz crisis from a military and energy story into a seafarer safety story as well. Dominguez said many crews have been trapped aboard vessels for months, depending on outside help for fuel, supplies, medical support, and communications with their families.
The attack put the rescue framework on hold
The IMO began the evacuation this week with member states and industry partners after ships were stranded by the wider Iran crisis. But the strike on the Ever Lovely forced the agency to stop and check whether vessels can move without being targeted for choosing one corridor over another.
UN News reported that the IMO is now in discussions with Iran, Oman, and the United States to restore assurances before the evacuation resumes. Dominguez said his priority is the safety of the vessels and seafarers, not interpreting the broader U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding.
The National reported that the remaining evacuation could take “a few weeks” once the safety guarantees are restored. That timeline matters because the longer ships remain trapped, the more the humanitarian burden grows for crews stuck inside a militarized chokepoint.
Two routes, one unresolved dispute
The evacuation is running through two temporary corridors because the established Traffic Separation Scheme in the Strait of Hormuz is considered unsafe due to reported mines. UN News said one route is coordinated by Iran to the north, while another runs closer to Oman with support from Oman and the United States.
That split is exactly where the politics gets dangerous. Iran has insisted that ships respect routes it authorizes through the strait, while Washington and Gulf partners have argued that navigation must remain free and unrestricted. The dispute is now playing out in the same space where seafarers are trying to leave.
TIME reported that the Ever Lovely strike followed Iranian warnings that vessels must coordinate with the IRGC Navy and avoid routes Tehran called unauthorized. The report said no casualties were reported from the strike, but the attack raised new doubts about whether the interim deal can keep shipping moving.
What to watch next
The key question is whether the IMO can restart the evacuation with credible guarantees from Iran, Oman, and the United States. A second question is whether commercial vessels keep using the southern corridor near Oman, especially after Iran’s warnings and the U.S. pledge to support safe passage.
For now, 115 ships have escaped the bottleneck, but thousands of seafarers remain stuck. The Strait of Hormuz may be open on paper, but the evacuation pause shows that safe passage still depends on fragile military and diplomatic promises holding in real time.
Sources: UN News, International Maritime Organization, The National, TIME.