A ship transiting the Strait of Hormuz has been attacked and the International Maritime Organization evacuation scheme has been halted. International trade media publication, Lloyd’s List, has described the vessel as a containership.
An unidentified projectile has struck a cargo ship on the starboard side near the Strait of Hormuz approximately 7.5 nautical miles south east of Dahi, Oman, according to a report from the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre. The master of the ship has reported to the UK MTO that there are no casualties and no environmental impact.
The IMO immediately suspended its Persian Gulf evacuation plan. IMO Secretary-General Mr. Arsenio Dominguez commented on 25 June 2026 that:
“Following the launch of the IMO’s evacuation plan, through which several vessels have already been successfully evacuated, I have decided to temporarily pause its implementation in order to reconfirm that the necessary safety guarantees continue to be in place for the ships on our evacuation list and all those in the region. I have been informed of an attack today in the Gulf of Oman on a vessel which passed through the Strait of Hormuz. This vessel did not transit under IMO’s evacuation framework. I have always reiterated that the safety of the seafarers remains paramount. Therefore, to ensure a coordinated approach and navigational safety, the evacuation plan will be paused until further clarity is obtained”.
According to global insurer Allianz, research data shows that around 1,150 cargo-carrying vessels (over 100 gross tons (a measure of volume, not space)) with an estimated vessel and cargo value of approximately $125 billion, a volume of 29 million GT, and as many as 20,000 seafarers are in the Persian Gulf waiting to resume operations.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard warning
According to an official statement from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on its Sepah News channel (in Farsi, machine-translated into English), there had been an announcement by some authorities for a new route for ships to transit through the Strait without co-ordinating with the Islamic Republic. This route is said to be unacceptable to the Revolutionary Guard and dangerous, with only the Iran-approved route being deemed to be acceptable. The IRGC Navy stated on Sepah that coordination with Iran is necessary and that any violators will be dealt with. The IRGC prohibited transit via any other route and warned vessels not to travel on other routes.
Pictured (above): Iranian naval commander, Alireza Tangsiri (now deceased), overlooks a containership that is underway from an aerial vantage point. Photo: Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy / Sepah News.
It should be noted that Iran does not have any legal right to close the Strait. Under Article 17 of the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea, ships of all States, whether coastal or land-locked, enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea. Furthermore, assuming that the attack on the vessel above was correctly reported, then the attack took place in Omani territorial waters. UNCLOS, articles 2 and 3, states that the sovereignty of a coastal state extends beyond its land territory to an adjacent belt of sea, the territorial sea, which can have a breadth up to but not exceeding 12 nautical miles.
According to Lloyd’s List, at least two tankers have reversed course while attempting to transit Hormuz via the southern channel near the Omani coast. These vessels were reported to be the Singapore-flagged, 2010-built, tanker Azumasan (IMO 9397157) and the Togo-flagged, 2001-built, combined chemical and oil tanker Blue Star 1 (IMO 9215115), which were said to be attempting to exit the Gulf using the route approved by Oman.
IMO Evacuation Scheme
The IMO had previously announced on 23 June 2025 an evacuation scheme via Omani territorial waters following the signing of the peace deal between the USA and Iran, which stated that upon the signing of the MoU, that the Islamic Republic of Iran would make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days only from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa.
The IMO announced it would begin the implementation of a large scale operation to evacuate over 11,000 seafarers stranded in the region, which would be carried out in close cooperation with Iran, Oman, the other coastal states, the United States, and the maritime industry.
“We have secured the necessary safety guarantees and have thoroughly verified the conditions for safe navigation to support these operations,” the IMO said.
The official Oman National Hydrographic Office, part of Ministry of Defence of the Sultanate of Oman had released a statement on 23 June 2026 declaring the existence of a transit corridor through its territorial sea in accordance with its “continued commitment to the international law and the law of the sea to ensure freedom of navigation in the Strati without imposing any tolls”. The statement added that Muscat had “worked in coordination with the International Maritime Organization to provide all vessels with the option of a temporary maritime corridor”.
Oman indicated that a gradual and controlled evacuation of vessel traffic was required.
Pictured (above): the evacuation transit corridor as declared by the Sultanate of Oman. The graphic above was generated by ChatGPT on a Shipping Australia prompt, using the co-ordinate data from the Sultanate of Oman. The graphic has been checked for accuracy for the purposes of illustration (but not navigation) by Shipping Australia staff, including the Shipping Australia CEO, Capt Melwyn Noronha, a former professional seafarer.
Graphic: the red market denotes the approximate location in the Strait of Hormuz where a cargo ship, thought to be a containership was attacked recently. It is notable that the location of the attack appears to be within Omani territory and also on the evacuation route as declared by the Sultanate of Oman. Graphic source: UK Maritime Trade Operations (note, the graphic has been lightly edited by Shipping Australia).
