BY REUTERS

PANAMA CITY – Around 1,500 ships and their crews are trapped in the Gulf due to the Iranian blockade in the strait of Hormuz, the secretary general of the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) said in Panama.

The war in the Middle East, unleashed February 28 by Israel and the United States against Iran, provoked reprisals from Tehran across the region and a shipping blockade in Hormuz, a crucial global trade route.

“Right now, we have approximately 20,000 crewmen and around 1,500 ships trapped,” Arsenio Dominquez told the Maritime Convention of the Americas.