NEW YORK: The secretary-general of the International Maritime Organization on Friday said he has temporarily suspended a fledgling evacuation framework for the roughly 11,000 seafarers stranded aboard some 600 vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, after one of the ships using the corridor was struck a day earlier — the first such incident since the mechanism was launched this week.
Arsenio Dominguez, briefing reporters from IMO headquarters, said the bulk carrier Ever Lovely was hit on Thursday after transiting the southern part of the strait — the route supported by Oman and the US — though he stressed that the vessel had not been operating under IMO’s evacuation framework when it was attacked. No casualties were reported.
“I can confirm that there was no attempt right now for that vessel to be in line to transit through the evacuation corridor,” Dominguez told Arab News, responding to a question on what exactly happened to the Ever Lovely.
He said the ship appeared to have made its own risk assessment rather than coordinating through Oman or Iran, and an investigation into the circumstances of the attack is ongoing.
Dominguez told Arab News that the evacuation mechanism will not resume before further clarity and guarantees “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.”
The evacuation framework, launched this week by IMO with Oman, established two routes out of the strait: a northern corridor operated by Iran, and a southern one supported by Oman and the US.
IMO said it cannot yet use the formal 1968 traffic separation scheme because of mines believed to be present in that part of the waterway — Dominguez put the figure at roughly 80, though he cautioned that the number is unconfirmed — under a memorandum of understanding between Iran and the US that includes a demining commitment.
Despite the pause, Dominguez said vessels have continued moving. By Friday morning, four ships had transited the northern corridor and 11 the southern one, even with the IMO mechanism on hold, while at least 115 vessels carrying around 2,500 seafarers had safely evacuated since the framework launched three and a half days earlier — figures he described as still subject to verification.
The IMO chief said he is in active contact with Iran, Oman and the US, as well as the broader membership and shipping industry, to restore the guarantees needed to resume the program.
He noted that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had issued warnings that ships using “unauthorized” corridors would face legal consequences, language he said he is still seeking to fully understand.
Pressed on whether Tehran’s Foreign Ministry and the IRGC are aligned, Dominguez said he is engaging “in relation to the position that was taken at foreign affairs level, and then the actions that were taken by the IRGC.”
Dominguez said 14 seafarers have died in more than 40 attacks on vessels since the crisis began, and described speaking directly with crew members who have left the region.
He also addressed a rise in piracy off Somalia and Yemen, distinguishing it from the missile and drone threats seafarers face elsewhere.
Piracy, he said, is something ships can be trained and equipped to repel; attacks involving drones and missiles are not.
IMO has reissued guidance urging vessels transiting those waters to apply longstanding “best management practices,” and said several recent attempted attacks had been unsuccessful as a result.
Asked how long full evacuation might take once the framework resumes, Dominguez estimated several weeks would be needed to move the more than 500 vessels still awaiting transit.
He said any decision on resuming traffic into the strait — as opposed to evacuation alone — would require further negotiation with regional states and falls outside his current mandate.
Dominguez declined to characterize the legal status of Thursday’s strike or to interpret whether it violated the Iran-US MoU, saying that was not a question for him to answer.
But he said he remains focused on incremental progress: evacuating seafarers, demining the strait, and eventually restoring normal trade flows.
“I’m not going to start questioning who calls what because I follow international law, the rights of states, and that’s the approach that I take in any conversation,” he added.
