French container ship reappears after untracked transit through Strait of Hormuz

A French-operated container vessel has resurfaced in the Arabian Sea after previously transmitting its position in the Persian Gulf, suggesting it completed a rare and risky passage through the Strait of Hormuz, Bloomberg News reported Thursday.

The CMA CGM Saigon, a relatively small container ship operated by CMA CGM SA, was last recorded Tuesday near Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates, according to vessel-tracking data. By late Wednesday, it had reappeared off Oman’s coast, listing Colombo, Sri Lanka, as its next port of call.

The absence of tracking signals during the intervening period indicates the ship may have switched off its transponder, a tactic known as “going dark.” Monitoring vessel movements in the Hormuz corridor has become increasingly difficult amid widespread signal interference and jamming in the region.

If confirmed, the Saigon’s journey would place it among a small number of Western European-linked ships to successfully navigate the strait since hostilities escalated between Iran and the United States. Earlier in April, the company managed to move a larger container ship through the same route, marking one of the first such transits since the conflict intensified.

Tensions in the waterway have grown in recent days. Iran has said it is tightening oversight of shipping traffic by defining new zones of control that extend toward key UAE ports along the Gulf of Oman. On Tuesday, another CMA CGM vessel, the San Antonio, was attacked while passing through the strait, leaving crew members injured and the ship damaged.

The CMA CGM Saigon has a capacity of roughly 1,700 twenty-foot equivalent units, making it smaller than many vessels typically operating on major international trade routes.