Twenty Thousand Seafarers in the Gulf: The Human Cost of the Treaty Vacuum
Approximately 20,000 seafarers are stranded across roughly 2,000 vessels in the Persian Gulf. The ITF has fielded 1,900 assistance requests, repatriated 450 crew, and designated the strait a Warlike Operations Area. The IMO Secretary-General has stated there is no safe transit anywhere in the strait. None of the routine coordination a treaty-backed chokepoint authority would provide currently exists at Hormuz.