The Chief Mate Mohammad Aisha has finally boarded an airplane to return to his country, Syria, ending a four-year battle where he was forced to live on an abandoned ship in the Suez Canal.
Mr Aisha is free after the ITF offered to have one of its union representatives in Egypt take Mr Aisha’s place and become the legal guardian of the vessel.
Mr Aisha was the chief officer onboard the Bharani-flagged MV Aman for just two months before the vessel was detained by Egyptian authorities because of expired safety equipment certificates.
When the owner abandoned the ship an Egyptian court designated Mr Aisha the vessel’s ‘legal guardian’, preventing him from leaving the Aman until the ship was sold or a replacement guardian found.
The vessel had no power, while Mr Aisha had to swim ashore to charge his phone, and for food and water.
“When we put forward one of our ITF contacts to take Mohammad Aisha’s place it was accepted by the court and we were then able to advance the necessary immigration processes and arrange the Covid PCR tests to start to get him home
As for the Chief Mate, he told BBC how he felt minutes before his plane was due to take off:
How do I feel? Like I finally got out of prison. I’m finally going to be rejoined with my family. I’m going to see them again
However, Mr Aisha’s case is not yet over, as the global union federation fights to recover the seafarer’s wages.
It is absolutely unacceptable that it is always the seafarers who are made to pay the very high costs of abandonment. Abandonment is the cancer of the maritime industry and it needs to be eradicated
concluded ITF Arab World and Iran network coordinator Mohamed Arrachedi.
