The International Maritime Organization published on Wednesday, 16 September 2026, a dedicated Secretary-General statement calling on Member States to stop using armed conflicts as a pretext to attack merchant ships and seafarers. Arsenio Dominguez delivered the remarks to the Sub-Committee on Carriage of Cargoes and Containers, still sitting in London through 18 September. The operational number in the statement is new. Since the current Middle East conflict began on 28 February, IMO has now verified 80 attacks on international shipping in and around the Strait of Hormuz, with at least 22 seafarer deaths and injuries to many others. That is not a press-office round number. It is the Organization\u2019s verified casualty file, and it has moved since the Maritime Safety Division\u2019s 10 September briefing, which had put the Hormuz tally at 73 attacks and 21 deaths.<\/p>\n
Dominguez\u2019s sentence to the room was direct: \u201cWe are reaching a point where these conflicts are being used as a pretext to attack merchant vessels and innocent seafarers. Do not use these conflicts to attack innocent seafarers.\u201d He repeated that the attacks are not attributable to one actor. \u201cIn the Strait of Hormuz, it is not only one country attacking merchant vessels. In the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, it is not only one country attacking merchant vessels.\u201d The statement is a political instruction to capitals, not a new routing circular. CCC 12\u2019s working groups are still writing alcohol-fuel, low-flashpoint, OCCS and Cargo Securing Manual text. The Secretary-General used the same room to tell flags that the casualty list is now large enough that Member States cannot treat merchant ships as leverage and still claim they are protecting seafarers.<\/p>\n
This Wednesday intervention is distinct from Dominguez\u2019s Monday opening of CCC 12. On 14 September he cited the Palawan ferry fire on June Aster<\/em>, the Java Sea capsize of Virgo Transport 8<\/em>, and weekend merchant-ship casualties, and he told owners, operators and flags to run realistic risk assessments before sending ships through Hormuz, the Black Sea, the Red Sea or waters off Somalia. Wednesday\u2019s statement adds a verified Hormuz count, a Red Sea fatality confirmation, and an explicit request that delegates take the shipping impact to their governments and to the appropriate United Nations bodies. The Secretariat, he said, will contribute technical and operational solutions that Member States can bring forward. It will not settle the wars.<\/p>\n The Hormuz file is the one IMO is prepared to number. Eighty verified attacks since 28 February, 22 dead. That corridor still sits under competing control claims: Iran\u2019s attempt to manage or fee transit, U.S. naval enforcement against Iranian ports, and a commercial pattern that has already printed as low as four commodity-vessel transits on Tuesday, 15 September, with no VLCC and no LNG in that Kpler cut. UKMTO, NAVAREA IX and coastal-state statements continue to describe projectile, drone and fire incidents on named and unnamed hulls. The Secretary-General\u2019s point to operators is not which navy is right. It is that the Organization has now counted 80 merchant-ship attacks in that waterway and 22 seafarers who will not go home, and that the count is still rising while CCC 12 is in session.<\/p>\n The Black Sea and Sea of Azov remain the hardest theatre to verify. Dominguez said dozens of fatalities have been reported from attacks on international shipping in recent months, but that precise numbers are difficult to confirm. That matches the Maritime Safety Division\u2019s earlier warning that disinformation from the parties is common. The September record already includes drone hits on ships under way, not only on ships alongside. The Guinea-Bissau-flagged Baryon<\/em> was struck on a Novorossiysk\u2013Karachi voyage. The Liberia-flagged Suezmax Siren<\/em> was hit in early September. The Turkish feeder Lionfish<\/em> took a drone in the container bay on 13 September and had to fight a fire. The Russian products tanker Armada Leader<\/em> was struck near Sochi after a helicopter escort failed. Two seafarers have already died in the first half of September on that sea. IMO is not yet willing to publish a single verified death toll. Company security officers should not wait for one. The pattern is enough for ISPS, fire and citadel instructions on any Black Sea commercial voyage.<\/p>\n The Red Sea file is specific. Attacks have resumed, and IMO has confirmed four fatalities in the latest Houthi attack on a merchant vessel on 11 August. That is the Tihamah<\/em> projectile strike off Al Mokha, which the Secretary-General addressed in a separate statement at the time. It is not a historical footnote. Houthi forces have since taken Mokha, moved onto Perim and the Hanish islands, and declared a maritime blockade against Saudi-associated shipping. Container lines are nonetheless putting more Asia\u2013Europe and India\u2013U.S. capacity back through Suez. Dominguez\u2019s four confirmed dead are the human cost of treating that coast as a schedule problem. They remain the last IMO-verified seafarer deaths on a Houthi merchant-ship attack, not a clearance.<\/p>\n Somalia sits in the same four-theatre frame even though Wednesday\u2019s statement did not repeat the hostage numbers. IMO data, as reported this month, already put 2026 attacks in the region at 15, the highest annual total since 2013. Sward<\/em> was released near Garacad on 12 September after a ransom. Honour 25, Eureka, Asana and Seamull\/Sibu I remain held. Naval attention is concentrated on Hormuz and the Red Sea. That is the security vacuum the pirates are using. The Secretary-General\u2019s instruction that conflicts must not be used as a pretext to attack merchant ships covers state and non-state actors alike. A pirate boarding is still an attack on a merchant ship. A drone into a container bay is still an attack on a merchant ship. A projectile on a Hormuz transit is still an attack on a merchant ship. The legal and commercial files differ. The seafarer does not.<\/p>\n It does not reopen Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb or the Black Sea. It does not amend SOLAS, the ISPS Code or any NAVAREA. It does not tell a company security officer which routing to file. Dominguez was explicit that addressing the root causes of the conflicts is beyond IMO\u2019s remit, and that the impact is now visible in trade, operations and everyday supply chains. His ask was that delegates \u201cshare these impacts with the relevant bodies in your countries so that this can be dealt with within the United Nations, as appropriate.\u201d Flag administrations that sit in CCC 12 this week are being told to carry the 80\/22 Hormuz file, the unverified Black Sea deaths, and the 11 August Red Sea fatalities into their foreign ministries, not only into their maritime administrations.<\/p>\n That matters for operators because the gap between a Secretary-General statement and a flag circular is where voyage orders currently live. Liberia has already set ISPS Security Level 3 for the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Iran\u2019s Persian Gulf Strait Authority has published a 77-vessel Non-Compliance List and warned P&I clubs and class societies not to serve listed ships. UKMTO continues to issue projectile warnings on named and unnamed hulls. None of those instruments waited for Wednesday\u2019s statement. What Wednesday adds is an IMO-verified casualty accounting that underwriters, charterers and port-state inspectors can quote: 80 attacks, 22 dead, more than one actor, four theatres, and an official request that capitals stop using merchant ships as a method of war.<\/p>\n The commercial consequence sits in crewing, insurance and routing, not in a new IMO circular number. Manning agents and unions already treat Hormuz, the southern Red Sea, the Somali basin and the Black Sea as high-risk assignment waters. A verified death toll of 22 in one strait since February is the figure that will appear in next-week crew briefings, in HRA-pay disputes, and in any inquiry after the next hit. War-risk underwriters do not need IMO permission to price those waters. They now have an Organization-verified numerator. Charterers who have been writing \u201csubject to owner\u2019s security assessment\u201d into Hormuz and Red Sea voyage orders should read the statement as confirmation that the assessment cannot be a one-line \u201ccorridor open\u201d note. The Secretary-General has told Member States that innocent seafarers are being used as a pretext. A commercial voyage that still goes has to show, in the SMS, that the company knew that and still sent the ship.<\/p>\n Regulas Shipping will keep lining the Secretary-General\u2019s 80-attack, 22-death Hormuz file against UKMTO, NAVAREA and flag Level 3 measures so operators can treat Wednesday\u2019s statement as a casualty accounting and a capital-level instruction, not as a new routing circular.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The International Maritime Organization published on Wednesday, 16 September 2026, a dedicated Secretary-General statement calling on Member States to stop using armed conflicts as a pretext to attack merchant ships and seafarers. Arsenio Dominguez delivered the remarks to the Sub-Committee on Carriage of Cargoes and Containers, still sitting in London through 18 September. The operational […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":714,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpai_generated_summary":"","wpai_meta_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,20,4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-highlights","category-maritime-regulations","category-maritime-security","category-regulatory-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Four theatres, one verified Hormuz file<\/h2>\n
What the statement does not do<\/h2>\n
What Operators Should Note<\/h2>\n
\n