Iran war: 15,000 cruise ship passengers trapped in Gulf waters

Thousands of cruise ship passengers remain stranded in the Gulf as a result of the war on Iran.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO), a UN-run agency, told AFP on Thursday that around 20,000 seafarers and 15,000 cruise ship passengers were trapped as the conflict has frozen travel.

"Beyond the economic impact of these alarming attacks, it is a humanitarian issue. No attack on innocent seafarers is ever justified," Arsenio Dominguez, the IMO’s secretary general, said.

"I reiterate my call for all shipping companies to exercise maximum caution when operating in the affected region," he added.

The freeze on travel is part of the growing number of industries that have been disrupted by the war in the Middle East, with tourism severely affected by the region-wide conflict.

In-bound arrivals have been projected to fall by as much as a quarter year-on-year in 2026, according to Global Forecasting.

As well as tourists, seafarers have been placed at risk. On Thursday, two Indian crew members were reported to have been killed in attacks on a tanker. Ashish Kumar and Dalip Singh were killed in strikes on a Palau-flagged oil tanker called Skylight in the Gulf of Oman.

Many of the ships affected were expected to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been all but closed by Iran following the start of the war.

Some 23,000 Indian crew remain stranded near the Hormuz Strait.

Traffic in the strait has been almost ground to a halt by Iran, with seaborne traffic falling by 80 percent over the weekend and oil tanker transits through the strait dropping by 90 percent from last week.