UN calls for evacuation of 6,000 sailors stranded in Hormuz

The United Nations on Friday called for the safe evacuation and repatriation of about 6,000 sailors stranded in what it described as a dire humanitarian and human rights crisis in the Strait of Hormuz.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk urged action to protect thousands of seafarers caught up in the Middle East war, his spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo said in Geneva.

The International Maritime Organization has said at least 6,000 seafarers on hundreds of vessels are stranded in the strait and unable to evacuate during the ceasefire. Many others are unaccounted for.

Turk urged states, ship owners and other relevant actors to protect stranded seafarers by providing consular assistance, essential supplies, evacuations and repatriations. Mantoo said parties to the conflict should urgently help secure safe passage so stranded seafarers can evacuate and disembark, and should ensure delivery of critical supplies.

The war, which the source says erupted at the end of February, resumed this month after a ceasefire that lasted only a few weeks. The renewed fighting has left Iran and the United States battling for control of the Strait of Hormuz. The US military says the waterway, through which one fifth of the world's oil passed before the war, remains open for transit after Iran continued attacks on tankers using the route in an effort to pressure them into paying for safe passage.

Mantoo said attacks against civilian vessels are unacceptable and must stop, adding that civilian ships are protected under international humanitarian law. She said seafarers remain exposed to hostilities and face imminent risks of death or harm. The UN rights office said 17 seafarers had been reported killed since the conflict began at the end of February.

The UN rights office also said some seafarers had been abandoned at sea by ship owners without support, repatriation or wages. It said at least nine ships with 93 crew members were affected, and that those crews had been left without food, water, fuel, medical care, electricity or means to communicate with their families.

Turk also raised concern for seafarers in other conflict zones, including the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea because of Russia's war in Ukraine. Shipping companies have suspended services to Ukraine's Black Sea ports after increasing Russian attacks on the coast. The UN rights office said it had verified at least four attacks on civilian vessels in the Odesa region this month, in which 34 vessel workers were killed or injured.

Ukraine is a major commodity exporter, with 90 percent passing through Black Sea ports in and around Odesa. Mantoo said seafarers should not be forced to sail through conflict zones or face reprisals from ship owners if they decline such assignments.