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The fate of two sailboats carrying aid to Cuba remained unclear Friday with the US Coast Guard saying it was not involved in the search after stating earlier that the boats had crossed safely from Mexico.

The Mexican navy said Thursday that it was searching for two boats transporting humanitarian aid for Cuba with nine crew of different nationalities on board.

Just a trickle of cargo ships and tankers -- most of them Iranian -- have made it through the Strait of Hormuz since Iranian forces effectively blocked the crucial trade route in the Middle East war.

A damaged Russian gas tanker that was abandoned in the Mediterranean will be towed to a Libyan port, according to a state-owned oil company in the north African country. 

A Russian tanker that was badly damaged in an attack in the Mediterranean last week is drifting without crew towards the Libyan coast, Italy's civil protection service said on Friday.

Seafarers stuck in the Gulf say they are rationing food and water and anxiously hoping supplies will get through Iran's blockade in the war that has stranded them for three weeks.