Human Rights at Sea published a podcast made by Second Engineer Vikas Mishra, abandoned on the UAE-flagged MV Tamim Aldar. The engineer has been abandoned for 33 months.
We’re loosing all hope and we are helpless
… Vikas Mishra stated in the podcast.
The chief engineer discussed the problem of lacking tube and bunkers, meaning that the generators weren’t able to run for more than an hour a day, while the temperatures in the area were currently 40+ degrees Centigrade.
Although the abandoned seafarers try to cooperate with the company, the Engineer commented that ‘the company never cared for us. They stopped communicating, they stopped everything.’
He continued that although, even in 2018, every ship company gave one month salary, the abandoned seafarers received nothing.
The biggest problem is that they’re 20 nautical miles away from the shore. Thus, they also face problems with the network; And the second thing is that they don’t have a recharge card, meaning that they have no way to communicate with their families.
Very rarely we call to our homes.
The men on board were sleeping outside at night and were subject to ‘many kind of cockroach and insects and mosquito and weather.’ Due to a lack of food, they were becoming sick and also suffering depression, ‘feeling helpless.’
In light of the podcast, Founder, David Hammond, commented
This shocking testimony by a professional Indian seafarer is one which needs to be heard, reviewed and used as an example highlighting the terrible conditions suffered by ordinary seafarers who have been abandoned by their owners for whatever reason. It is not often that the public are able to hear such evidence first-hand.
