The United Nations says about 6,000 seafarers remain trapped on roughly 500 ships in the Persian Gulf as the Strait of Hormuz shipping crisis drags into another dangerous phase.
UN News reported Thursday that the International Maritime Organization believes “very few ships, if any” are now sailing through the narrow waterway after renewed attacks on vessels and the latest round of U.S.-Iran escalation. IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said the mariners are trained to move global trade, not to operate in a missile and drone fight.
The update gives the crisis a sharper human and logistical angle. List25 has already covered the strike cycle, ceasefire disputes, tanker attacks, and the fight over who controls Hormuz. The new development is the UN maritime agency putting numbers on the people still stuck behind the stalled sea lane: around 6,000 seafarers aboard about 500 ships.
UN Warns the Crisis Is Getting Out of Control
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council the escalation is “getting out of control” and warned of devastating regional and global consequences if the fighting is not reversed, according to UN News.
Dominguez said the IMO wants all trapped seafarers evacuated first. Only after that, he said, can negotiators focus on guarantees that the region is de-mined, the strait is safe for transit, and shipping can gradually return toward the prewar level of about 135 vessel crossings per day.
That is a major practical hurdle. The Strait of Hormuz carries an estimated 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas supplies in peacetime, and shipping companies cannot simply resume normal movement without credible safety guarantees.
Strikes and Blockade Pressure Continue
The shipping warning landed as U.S. military operations continued. CBS News reported that U.S. Central Command said it completed a 13th consecutive night of strikes on Iran, targeting drone sites, command centers, and other locations tied to threats against civilian mariners and commercial vessels transiting Hormuz.
CBS also reported that the U.S. blockade has redirected 12 vessels since it was restored nine days earlier. That blockade is aimed at Iranian ports, but the wider effect is that commercial traffic is being forced through a crisis environment where owners, insurers, crews, and governments are all weighing whether movement is worth the risk.
The National reported that Hormuz remains virtually shut and that attacks by Iran-backed Houthis in the Red Sea have raised the risk of a second chokepoint crisis at Bab al-Mandab. Energy analyst Sasha Foss told the outlet that simultaneous disruption at both routes would critically tighten physical oil markets.
Why This Matters
The seafarer count matters because it shows the crisis is not only a military contest or an oil-price story. Thousands of civilian crew members are stuck inside a conflict zone, while ships carrying fuel, goods, and industrial cargo wait for a safe path out.
For negotiators, that creates a narrower next step than a full political settlement: get crews out, establish de-mining and transit guarantees, and prove that ships can move without being used as leverage. Until that happens, Hormuz is likely to remain a stalled chokepoint even if diplomatic talks continue.
Sources: UN News; CBS News; The National.