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Seafarers union charges authorities ignoring plight of crew in detained ship
A maritime trade union yesterday charged that the relevant authorities and other stake holders in the shipping industry had opted to ignore the desperate plight of 16 seafarers including five Sri Lankans who are currently on board a Malaysian-flagged vessel located in anchorage some 10 nautical miles off the Colombo Port.
Palitha Athukorale, President of the National Union for Seafarers Sri Lanka (NUSS) told the Sunday Times the all Sri Lankan and Myanmar crew are close to starvation and also without adequate safe drinking water following a simmering stand-off between the ship’s Malaysian owner and a Singapore-based bunkering company.
According to Mr. Athukorale the owner of the ship – Saarg Sirius – is in the red to the Singapore company and therefore the vessel was detained on a court order more than three months ago.
To make matters even worse the local handling agent Mackinnon Mackenzie has ceased to provide food and other essential supplies to the crew claiming that the ship owner had failed to honour credit bills while the authorities at Merchant Shipping say that they are broke and unable to help in the matter, he added.
The NUSS along with the International Transport workers Federation (ITF) was successful in persuading the Myanmar Embassy to provide some relief to the hands on the Saarg Sirius after much discussion and a boat load of essential supplies were taken to the ship early yesterday morning, Mr. Athukorale added.
Meanwhile Merchant Shipping Director General Ajith Seneviratne said he had obtained a court order directing the local handling agent to provide food and other relief measures to the crew for another two weeks until a solution could be reached.
“All the stake holders should come to some agreement within this period or else the authorities will seek court intervention to auction the vessel to settle outstanding bills,” he added.
The ship owner is also in the red to the crew who has not received their wages for the past four months, Mr. Seneviratne added.
Officials at Mackinnon Mackenzie were not available for comment yesterday.
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