UN agency pauses Hormuz ship evacuation plan after first vessel attack under peace deal

Vessels in the Strait of Hormuz near the beach of Bandar Abbas, Iran, June 11, 2026. Amirhosein Khorgooi/isna | Via Reuters The International Maritime Organization has paused its efforts aimed at evacuating ships and seafarers stranded inside the Middle East Gulf after a vessel was attacked in the Gulf of Oman. The pause follows a container ship being struck by an unknown projectile near the coast of Oman on Thursday, with a U.S. official telling MS Now that Iran was behind the attack . The evacuation plan would be temporarily paused "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," Arsenio Dominguez, Secretary-General of the ​International Maritime Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations, said in a statement . When asked about its response to the attack, a U.S. official said "we are aware of these reports and looking into them. President Trump has been clear that Iran cannot subvert the free flow of traffic in the strait." The IMO initiative, launched on Tuesday, was aimed at supporting hundreds of stranded ships and thousands of seafarers to sail out of the Gulf, using either a northern route via Iranian waters or a southern route via Omani waters with U.S. oversight, the IMO said earlier this week. Shipowners had been seeking to transit the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S. …