NIRGOSH GAUDE | NT
PONDA
A 22-year-old Goan youth and 13 other Indians are crying for immediate help, as the ship they have been working on has been detained by naval officials in Djibouti port after their captain left the ship two months back.
The 14 Indians are a part of a 20-member crew on board LPG/C Windsor merchant ship.
The crew members claim that they have not been supplied with basic amenities like food and fresh drinking water in addition to non-payment of wages for the last two months and they are stranded in the middle of the sea with no option to return home. The Goan youth stranded on the ship is Nikon Philip Dias (22), a resident of Ponda. He was recruited on the ship as a general steward. He had recently completed his steward training course and had taken up his first job on the ship. Apart from him, the crew on the ship includes 13 other Indians from different states, two members from Bulgaria, two from Ukraine and two security officers from Philippines.
The crew members alleged that the ship was in bad shape when they reported for work in January. However, they decided to continue working but things did not change. They started facing trouble with garbage getting piled up on the ship. Pleas to the fleet operator and ship owner fell on deaf ears, they said. The crew members later sent a first collective letter of protest, as no food and drinking water were provided by the company. “There is too much of garbage on board, as it has not been discharged and it has become a health concern for us,” said chief officer, LPG Windsor, Yevgen Bondarenko.
Later, the new management, Antares Marine, Singapore, assured they would shift the vessel to a safe place and the ship sailed to Fujairah. “We sailed without port clearance on orders from owner and captain Todor V Ivanov, from Djibouti to Fujairah. We had made a number of requests to send us charts and ‘ecdis’ permits to sail to Fujairah but we did not receive anything and had to sail without any safety risking our lives,” the crew members claimed.
They said, “As the vessel was sailing illegally without port clearance, we were refused entry into the ports of Muscat and Sohar and were forced to drop anchor at Fujairah outer port anchorage. We were promised supply of food, water and spare parts for the engine, which had broken down.” The crew members said that they waited for three days without food and water and later received information from the owner and captain that they needed to sail back to Djibouti without the minimum requirements of food, water and salary.
The crew refused to sail and waited for ten days before they received food and water after which they sailed for Djibouti, as they were promised by the ship owner that they will receive everything in Djibouti and that the crew will be changed, so those who wanted could leave.
“After we reached Djibouti, the captain illegally left the port and the vessel has since been detained, from April onwards,” the crew members said.
“We are stuck on this ship and in a bad condition and don’t know how many more days we will be in this situation. Conditions are very bad, we are not even allowed to move out. We feel we are caged and don’t know whom to contact for help,” said Nikon.
The port of Djibouti is a port in Djibouti City, the capital of Djibouti. It is strategically located at crossroads of one of the busiest shipping routes in the world, linking Europe, the Far East, the Horn of Africa and the Persian Gulf.