Agency official urges reactivation of evacuation mechanism for seafarers in the Strait of Hormuz

An agency official said an evacuation framework launched with the Sultanate of Oman is intended to assist roughly 11,000 seafarers who remain stranded aboard about 600 vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. "Together with the Sultanate of Oman, we launched the evacuation framework in order to assist the 11,000 seafarers still stranded in around 600 vessels inside the Strait of Hormuz," the official said.

The official reported immediate results from that effort, saying: "We have been able to evacuate at least around 115 vessels, that's 115, have evacuated in the last 3 and 1/2 days, representing around 2,500 seafarers that have now safely left the Strait of Hormuz." The speaker noted the operation has paused and that some vessels are still transiting in the southern part of the strait.

The official urged that the evacuation mechanism be reactivated to provide "more safety guarantees for all the vessels that are waiting to transit." The speaker framed evacuation as the top priority and demining as the next one, saying, "My first priority is the evacuation of the seafarers. The next priority, which is in line with the MOU, is of course the demining of the Strait of Hormuz." The MOU referred to in the remarks was not further specified in the transcript.

The official appealed to the humanitarian and economic stakes of the crisis, stating, "We need to look after the seafarers better, and shipping should not be used as collateral in any geopolitical conflict. Affects innocent people like the seafarers, but also innocent people around the world that get affected by conflicts where they're not even engaged in." No date, agency name, or formal vote on next steps was provided in the remarks.

The statement did not identify the speaker by name; reporting here attributes quotations and claims to "the agency official" to reflect that the speaker did not self-identify in the transcript. Next steps were not specified in the record; the official's comments call for reactivation of the evacuation mechanism and for demining to proceed under the referenced MOU.