A tugboat dispatched to assist the damaged tanker Safeen Prestige was struck by two missiles on 6 March. Eight crew members were killed — the first confirmed merchant seaman deaths from IRGC attacks on commercial shipping since the war began on 28 February.
The vessel was not making a commercial transit through the strait. It was performing a rescue operation — sent to reach a tanker already hit in earlier fighting. Article 98 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea obligates all states to render assistance to persons in distress at sea. Striking a vessel engaged in that function carries separate legal exposure from attacks on commercial transits, which are themselves prohibited under UNCLOS unless the vessel is directly supporting military operations. No such claim was made by the IRGC.
The IRGC's shipping attacks have escalated through distinct stages. The Angolan-operated Sonangol Namibe was struck on Day 6 under a false IRGC claim that it was American-owned. Saturday's strikes on the Louise P and Prima followed a different pattern: the IRGC named both vessels, claimed responsibility publicly, and stated its rationale. The tugboat attack falls outside even that framework — no claim of enemy affiliation, no published justification. A rescue vessel destroyed while performing the duty maritime law requires.
The eight dead are the conflict's first confirmed civilian maritime casualties. Merchant crews operating in The Persian Gulf are drawn overwhelmingly from the Philippines, India, Myanmar, and Bangladesh — countries with no seat at any table where this war's terms will be set. With every major P&I club having withdrawn war risk coverage since 5 March and the world's three largest container lines refusing Gulf transits, the tugboat strike removes one more reason any commercial or rescue vessel would enter these waters.
