20,000 sailors and 15,000 cruise passengers stuck in Arabian Gulf: UN

An estimated 20,000 seafarers are stranded in the Arabian Gulf due to the threat of Iranian attacks on the Strait of Hormuz.

The International Maritime Agency has called on ships to halt all transits of the region until conditions improve. Arsenio Dominguez, secretary general of the IMO, called for international diplomacy to resolve the situation and revealed the body was dedicating its efforts to ensure the well-being of those at sea since US-Iran war began on Saturday.

“The ones that are immediately affected are the seafarers, the people onboard the ships, and we’re talking about 20,000 seafarers that are being affected and 15,000 people on passenger ships,” Dominguez said. Seatrade Cruise News reported that there are six cruise ships in Gulf with their passengers.

Iran's forces said they attacked a US oil tanker in international water near Kuwait on Thursday, which then caught fire, Iranian state media reported. The US has yet to comment.

With air travel shut down in the much of the region, although a small number of repatriation flights have started, seafarers are stuck on their ships in the Gulf. Even if seafarers were able to fly out of the region shipowners would not want to leave ships worth tens to hundreds of millions of dollars uncrewed.

At least 10 commercial ships have either been struck or involved in near misses in region since the 28 February.