UN agency pauses Hormuz ship evacuation operation after vessel attacked: Top official

UNITED NATIONS, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Jun, 2026) The United Nations maritime agency has paused an evacuation effort, which aimed to get hundreds of stranded ships and thousands of seafarers out through the Strait of Hormuz, after a vessel was attacked in the Gulf of Oman.

"I have been informed of an attack today in the Gulf of Oman on a vessel which passed through the Strait of Hormuz. This vessel did not transit under IMO’s evacuation framework," Arsenio Dominguez, Secretary-General of the U.N.'s International Maritime Organization, told a press conference on Friday.

"I have decided to temporarily pause its implementation to reconfirm that the necessary safety guarantees continue to be in place for the ships on our evacuation list and all those in the region."

The initiative, which was launched on Tuesday, was a voluntary option for ships and their crew to sail out of the Gulf using two routes: one via Iranian waters, and the other via Omani waters with U.S. oversight, the IMO said this week.

"We’re still investigating exactly what happened to the vessel,” Dominguez told reporters from his office in London. But, he added, “what I can confirm to you is [the ship] was not contacting the authorities in Oman to transit, following the evacuation framework.”

His remarks offered the clearest picture yet of a rescue effort that has become entangled in the fragile diplomacy surrounding one of the world’s most strategically important waterways.

The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes in peacetime, has become one of the central tests of the preliminary peace agreement reached last week between Washington and Tehran.

Although the memorandum of understanding signed by the two countries ended hostilities and reopened the waterway in principle, it left unresolved a fundamental question: who ultimately controls navigation through the narrow channel linking the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean.

Thursday’s attack exposed the practical consequences of that ambiguity.

Iran had already warned that only routes authorized by Tehran should be used, while many commercial vessels had been sailing along a southern corridor close to Oman’s coastline under arrangements coordinated by Oman, the United States and the IMO.

On Friday, Iranian authorities again asserted their right to regulate traffic through the Strait, underscoring the uncertainty that now hangs over the maritime provisions of the broader peace process.

Dominguez said his immediate concern was not interpreting the diplomatic agreement but restoring confidence that ships would not come under attack regardless of which route they followed.

“The guarantees that I’m looking to reinstate,” he said, are “the safety of the vessels and the seafarers – that there will be no action like the one that took place yesterday in relation to the possibilities of threatening a vessel or attacking a vessel for using one or another corridor.

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The agency is now in active discussions with Iran, Oman and the United States to secure renewed assurances before restarting the evacuations.

Despite the pause, maritime traffic has not come to a complete halt.

Dominguez said preliminary figures showed that four vessels had crossed on Friday through the northern corridor administered by Iran, while another 11 had used the southern route with assistance from Oman and the United States. He cautioned that those figures were still being verified.

He also disclosed another obstacle: ships are currently unable to use the internationally recognized traffic separation scheme that has governed navigation through the Strait of Hormuz since 1968, because the central shipping lanes remain contaminated by naval mines.

Instead, vessels are being funneled through two temporary corridors established after negotiations among the parties – one coordinated by Iran to the north and another supported by Oman and the United States to the south.

Asked whether Thursday’s attack violated the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding, Mr. Dominguez declined to offer a legal interpretation. Instead, he described a step-by-step approach.

“My first priority is the evacuation of the seafarers,” he said. “The next priority is, of course, the demining of the Strait of Hormuz.”

At least 14 seafarers have been killed and more than 40 commercial vessels attacked during the conflict, according to the IMO. Many crews have spent more than three months trapped aboard ships unable to leave the Gulf, relying on outside assistance for fuel, food, medical supplies and even communications with their families.

“Seafarers feel forgotten,” Dominguez said. “Whenever they turn on the news, they listen to how this conflict is really a big negative for the countries, for the global economy, the fuel price, et cetera, and not so much attention on the innocent seafarers.”

His appeal reflected the unusual position the IMO now occupies: attempting to keep one of the world’s busiest maritime chokepoints functioning while navigating negotiations that extend well beyond its technical mandate.

Only after the seafarers have been brought to safety, he said, can attention turn to the longer-term question that Thursday’s attack has thrown into sharper focus: who will ultimately govern passage through one of the world’s most consequential waterways.