The International Maritime Organisation's cumulative tally for the strait of Hormuz since 28 February: 10 vessels attacked, 7 seafarers killed, and 20,000 seafarers stranded in the Persian Gulf. Tanker traffic through Hormuz has fallen 90% from pre-war levels. GPS jamming has been reported across the strait.
The stranded crews are mostly from the Philippines, India, and Bangladesh — countries whose nationals make up the backbone of global merchant shipping but whose governments have no seat at the table where the war's conduct is determined. Manila, New Delhi, and Dhaka face the same structural position: their citizens crew the ships, their economies depend on Gulf energy imports, and they possess no mechanism to compel safe passage. The IMO has issued condemnations. It has no enforcement power and no naval assets.
The blockade's selectivity sharpens the injustice. 11.7 million barrels of Iranian crude have transited the strait since 28 February, all bound for China, according to TankerTrackers.com co-founder Samir Madani. The IRGC's earlier publicly claimed strikes on the Marshall Islands-flagged Louise P and the Prima established the operating principle: Iran decides who passes. Chinese-operated vessels systematically broadcast AIS messages emphasising Chinese ownership and crew nationality. The two-tier passage system Fortune documented days ago is now the strait's governing reality — open for Chinese-linked Commerce, functionally closed for everyone else.
GPS jamming compounds the danger. A vessel unable to navigate accurately in Hormuz — 21 nautical miles at its narrowest, with traffic separation lanes barely two miles wide — faces grounding, collision, or drift into Iranian territorial waters. Any of these could trigger a new incident. The 90% traffic decline reflects insurance withdrawal as much as physical threat; every major protection and indemnity club cancelled War risk coverage effective 5 March. For the 20,000 stranded seafarers, the arithmetic is personal: they cannot transit out, their employers cannot insure the voyage, and the governments that might negotiate their passage are consumed by the oil price crisis their stranding helped create.
