A ship gets hit in the Strait of Hormuz, instantly pausing the UN's big rescue
Just when we thought the stranded sailors in the Middle East might actually get to go home, someone decided to shoot a projectile at a random cargo ship and ruin it for everyone.
Since late February, about 11,000 sailors have been basically living as hostages on their own ships, stuck in the Strait of Hormuz because of the war between the US and Iran. This week, the IMO finally worked out a deal to start evacuating them. Some ships actually managed to slip out and head home.
But then on Thursday, a cargo ship got smacked on its starboard side by a mystery projectile. No one died, and the ship wasn't even part of the official evacuation list. Still, the IMO immediately hit the panic button and paused the entire rescue operation to "reconfirm safety guarantees" with everyone in the region.
Meanwhile, Tehran's newly created Persian Gulf Strait Authority put out an advisory that is pure gold. They basically said: if you sail outside our designated routes, whatever happens to you is your own fault. This comes right as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is flying around the Middle East trying to sell a peace deal that includes free passage through the strait. According to the Institute for the Study of War, Iran is just using these attacks to bully everyone into accepting their total control over the global shipping lane.
Nothing says "safe maritime passage" quite like a mystery projectile resetting a humanitarian rescue effort back to square one.
Source: IMO
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