The crew of an oil tanker who have not
set foot on dry land for nearly four years after being abandoned on board their
ship, which later ran aground off the United Arab Emirates, are finally going home to see their families.
The seafarers, who said they experienced
“living hell” on board the 5,000-ton MT Iba after the tanker’s owner hit financial problems and stopped paying
salaries almost three years ago, have been given a settlement for wages owed to
them. They hope to be repatriated next month.
The
five-man crew had a brief and emotional trip to dry land to meet with
representatives of Alco Shipping, the vessel’s owner, on the beach at Umm Al
Quwain, on Monday. Two cheques from a new buyer, Shark Power Marine Services,
were handed over to the crew via the Mission to Seafarers charity, which has
been negotiating on their behalf. They agreed to accept $165,000 (£119,000) in
unpaid wages, around 65% to 70% of the wages they were owed.
Work
is under way to assess the damage to the oil tanker when it broke anchor and
drifted from the busy port, before beaching two and a half weeks ago.
Nay
Win, the 53-year-old chief engineer, who is from Myanmar, said: “The buyer has
promised us we will get home and I hope I will get home after 5 March. My
family are really happy.”
Win
and Riasat Ali, a 52-year-old second engineer from Pakistan, have been on board
since July 2017. Monchand Sheikh, 26, a cook from India, joined in late 2018,
while Vinay Kumar, 31, another second engineer, and Nirmal Singh-Bora, 22, both
from India, joined in late 2019.
The
Rev Andy Bowerman, Mission to Seafarers regional director in the Middle East
and south Asia, said: “Hopefully, all being well, 15 days from now, they will
be at the port of Dubai and ready to go home.”
It
was an emotional meeting at the beach, Bowerman said, marking the first time some
of the seafarers had been ashore in almost four years.
“The
crew came off and swam to the shore. Nay Win was in tears. He was off the boat,
there was a cheque in my hands. But unfortunately they could not just step down
and go home.”
The
seafarers have agreed to stay on to do essential work on the ship before it is
towed to Dubai, where they will wait 15 days for legal work on the sale of the
vessel to be completed.
They
will then be paid the other half of the money they are owed, and repatriated.
A
spokesperson for the UAE Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure said the
authorities were helping the seafarers renew passports via their embassies, so
they could be quickly repatriated. The crew will require a PCR Covid-19 test,
and will be allowed to fly if the test is negative; otherwise, arrangements
will be made for quarantine.
Asked
why the UAE is the worst country for seafarer abandonment, according to a
database run by the International Maritime Organization, the spokesperson said
that it was a busy maritime hub, with 20 active ports, and that more traffic
led to more cases. New legislation that would allow the port to arrest an
abandoned ship and auction it without the involvement of the courts was not yet
in place.
Mohamed
Arrachedi, Arab world and Iran network coordinator for the International
Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) said the long-running case of the Iba was a
“symptom that something very wrong exists and has to change”.
“The
seafarers are the workforce that keeps ships at sea. Their rights, wellbeing,
wages, conditions and welfare must be at the centre of priorities.”
Article from The Guardian (edited)
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