An Indian Congress leader forwarded claims of around 10 Indian Merchant Navy sailors, who are stuck on a vessel anchored off a port in Northern Cyprus.
According to sources, the ship has been in that state for over a month, while the 13 crew members are not allowed to disembark.
Charmesh Sharma, the Indian Congress leader, stated that the owner of the vessel sold it to another company.
Commenting on what the situation is onboard, a seafarer noted that they are facing a threat to life amid illness caused by poor quality food and adverse conditions.
The seafarer also claimed that mobile networks and internet connections would soon be blocked by port authorities.
Furthermore, the authorities are also putting pressure on the crew to port the ship in Libya, while they are not allowing the crew to disembark from the ship.
I’m surprised that any responsible shipowner would allow their vessel to take part in any trade with North Cyprus in contravention with several United Nation resolutions and the non recognition of this self proclaimed Turkish “state’. Doesn’t anyone care? United Nations deal with this problem directly with the Turkish authorities to finalise a resolution please.
In answer to your question as to whether anyone cares, yes, some people clearly do. But those with the authority and the means to rectify such situations for seafarers clearly don’t. Certainly not “The Shipping Industry”. It is an industry which tolerates these situations – replicated as they are around the globe on a continual basis – as the norm. Self regulation on the part of all the internal industry “authorities”, whether flag state, port state, P&I, IMO, etc. ad nauseum, clearly doesn’t work or these situations would not be as common as they are. If it is left to ITF to recover circa USD40m each year in unpaid wages how is it working?