26OCT

IMO starts to evacuate 11,000 mariners

3 min read

15:07UTC

The International Maritime Organisation launched a coordinated evacuation of roughly 11,000 stranded seafarers from the Persian Gulf on 23 June, working with Iran, Oman and the United States as transits hit a war-high of 36.

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Key takeaway

The IMO began moving 11,000 stranded crews as Hormuz transits recovered to a war-high 36 a day.

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the UN agency responsible for the safety of international shipping, began a coordinated evacuation of roughly 11,000 stranded seafarers from the Persian Gulf on 23 June, operating with Iran, Oman and the United States together⁠¹. Fourteen seafarers have died during the months of closure since the IRGC declared Hormuz shut. Denmark joined the international maritime mission the same day.

These are crews left at anchor for months while the diplomatic and legal fight over the strait played out above them. No committee on paper can move them; the evacuation is the first physical relief they have had.

The operation became possible only because the waterway cracked partly open. Transits recovered to a war-high 36 vessels on Monday 22 June, up from just 12 on the day General License X authorised Iranian oil sales, creating the operational window the IMO needed. That recovery still runs at barely a third of the pre-war rate near 94 a day, so the evacuation describes a strait that is reopening for rescue rather than for trade.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

About 11,000 people work on ships that have been stuck in The Persian Gulf since the conflict began in late February. Fourteen of those workers have died during the months of closure. The International Maritime Organisation; the United Nations agency responsible for shipping safety; launched a formal evacuation on 23 June to get those stranded workers home. The number of ships actually moving through the strait of Hormuz rose to 36 on 22 June, up from just 12 a week earlier. That improvement created enough of an opening for the evacuation to begin. Still, 36 ships a day is less than 40% of the normal 94 that used to pass through before the conflict. Mines in the water and the lack of shipping insurance are the main reasons the strait has not fully reopened yet.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

The 11,000 stranded seafarers accumulated because P&I (Protection and Indemnity) insurance withdrawal on 15 March 2026; triggered by BIMCO's CONWARTIME clause; cut the legal liability chain: owners could not insure vessel entry, so they could not send relief crews in, and could not evacuate stranded ones without uninsured risk.

The IMO evacuation operates under a state-to-state framework (Iran, Oman, US), bypassing the commercial insurance barrier by treating evacuation vessels as quasi-governmental craft.

The fourteen deaths; a figure the IMO has not broken down by cause; likely combine delayed medical evacuation (no helicopter access within the closure zone), heat stress (Gulf summer temperatures reaching 48°C in the vessel engine rooms), and at least one incident of crew violence under prolonged confinement. The ITF documented all three causes in the 2020 COVID seafarer abandonment crisis, which stranded 400,000 globally for 18 months.

What could happen next?

Consequence
Repatriation of 11,000 seafarers removes the primary humanitarian leverage Iran and the IRGC held over shipping-dependent states like India and the Philippines, reducing Tehran's ability to use crew welfare as a negotiating chip.
Risk
If transit rates fall back below 15 vessels per day before mine clearance is certified, a second cohort of replacement crews entering under the post-evacuation framework will face the same stranding risk, extending the humanitarian crisis into August.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: The 1984-1988 Tanker War in the same waterway stranded and sank commercial vessels for four years. The IMO's response then was also reactive rather than pre-emptive: the UN Secretary-General did not formally request parties to protect navigation until July 1987, after the USS Stark and USS Samuel B.

Roberts incidents. The 2026 evacuation began faster than the 1980s precedent; 116 days versus 4 years; because the IMO now holds standing Gulf contingency protocols from the 1988 Hague peace conference aftermath.

Counter-parallel: The 2021 Ever Given Suez Canal blockage produced a rapid 6-day resolution with no seafarer fatalities, not because the waterway was more strategic but because a commercial vessel grounding lacks a state actor with an interest in prolonging closure. Hormuz is different in that structure: state intent, not accident, drove the closure, and the same state retains the physical capacity to re-close it.

The 36-transit war-high on 22 June (up from 12 on the day GL X was issued) represents roughly 38% of the pre-war 94-vessel daily rate. Each Hormuz transit day below pre-war baseline represents approximately $220 million in deferred cargo value, based on Lloyd's 2025 average cargo per Gulf transit.

The evacuation itself carries a direct cost burden: the IMO estimates repatriation flights for 11,000 seafarers from Omani and UAE ports at approximately $8,500 per crew member, totalling roughly $93.5 million, the responsibility split between shipowners, flag states and P&I clubs depending on which are solvent.

The Lloyd's-Chubb consortium ($600m combined hull/P&I/cargo capacity announced 19 June) will not cover evacuation vessels, which move under state sanction rather than commercial charter. Denmark's joining the international maritime mission on 23 June adds a European flag-state naval escort capability that may lower the risk premium for subsequent commercial re-entry.

Consensus view: The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) and the Nautilus Institute document the same pattern across all major strait closures since 1973: seafarer abandonment accelerates once stranded-vessel durations exceed 90 days, because owners stop paying wages and provisions.

Fourteen deaths over roughly 116 days of closure places the Hormuz crisis well within the historical mortality band for prolonged Gulf closures, but the 36-transit war-high on 22 June opened the evacuation window the ITF had been requesting since March.

Counter-view: Singapore's Centre for Maritime Law argues the IMO evacuation plan structurally disadvantages Asian crew-supply states: the Philippines, India and Bangladesh together supply roughly 60% of globally certified seafarers, but their governments were not co-signatories to the evacuation instrument, meaning repatriation costs fall on owners and flag states rather than the parties that ordered the closure.

Key tension: Whether the 36-vessel transit rate on 22 June represents a sustainable operational floor for commercial resumption, or whether mine-clearance delays and absent war-risk insurance will push the figure back below 15, stranding the next cohort of replacement seafarers before the evacuation completes.

Sources:International Maritime Organisation

Mentions:Iran →Oman →Denmark →Strait of Hormuz →Tanker War →Bangladesh →Philippines →USS Stark →Persian Gulf →Singapore →United Nations →India →General License X →United States →Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) →International Maritime Organization →CONWARTIME clause →Suez Canal →

First Reported In

Update #137 · Iran and Oman claim the strait; US says no

International Maritime Organisation· 24 Jun 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Hormuz crossings fell 78% on GL X's first day

IMO evacuation launch follows transit recovery from 12 ships on GL X day to 36 on 22 June, creating operational window for seafarer repatriation.

Occurred 22 Jun 2026

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This Event

IMO starts to evacuate 11,000 mariners

The evacuation and the transit count are what is physically true about Hormuz, and they describe a strait still mostly shut.

Led to

Korean ships sail past the IRGC order

The IMO-coordinated seafarer evacuation corridor (23 Jun) is the framework under which Korean vessels transited, which the IRGC rejected on the same day.

Occurred 25 Jun 2026

Read story →

11,000 trapped as exit corridor shut

The PGSA's corridor suspension reversed and negated the IMO coordinated evacuation of 11,000 seafarers that began on 23 June.

Occurred 25 Jun 2026

Read story →

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Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.