Houthi strike kills seafarers on Red Sea ship Tihamah
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- Houthi fighters struck the Tanzania-flagged deck cargo ship Tihamah off southern Yemen on Tuesday, reportedly killing several crew members and prompting IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez to call the attack 'indefensible.'
- The Tihamah, a 62.8-metre-long, 11-metre-wide vessel, became the latest target of a Houthi (Ansar Allah) campaign backed by Iran that has also threatened to blockade the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
- Houthi attacks on commercial shipping have continued after a decade-long war with a Saudi Arabia-led coalition; the group claimed strikes on two Saudi oil tankers on July 23, prompting UN Secretary-General António Guterres to express 'deep alarm.'
- The strike comes amid a near-total shipping freeze in the Strait of Hormuz, where only about seven vessels transited Sunday — nearly 20 times below the pre-war daily average — choking exports of oil, gas and fertilizer inputs.
- An IMO-coordinated evacuation plan for seafarers stranded near Hormuz has been put on hold, leaving roughly 6,000 crew members and 500 vessels still trapped, with only about 2,900 evacuated to date.
- The IMO's Hormuz crisis tracker has logged 65 confirmed incidents and 17 seafarers killed since early March, and Dominguez called for the 'immediate and unconditional release of all seafarers' held captive after piracy attacks.
Why it matters: With Hormuz transit down roughly 95% and 6,000 seafarers still trapped because evacuations are paused, shippers, commodity importers, and insurers face compounded exposure: Houthi attacks in the Red Sea are now layered onto an already-paralyzed Gulf shipping lane, driving sustained supply chain volatility for oil, gas, and fertilizer flows.
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