Hyderabad: Two persons from Andhra Pradesh along with 20 other crew onboard LPG/C Windsor merchant ship, are crying for immediate help as the ship was detained by Naval officials in Djibouti port after their Captain left the ship illegally.
The crew claimed that they have not been supplied with basic amenities like food and fresh drinking water, in addition to non-payment of wages for the past two months.
The members of the crew alleged that the ship was in bad shape when they reported to work in January and since then, they have been facing trouble with the garbage piled up in the ship. Pleas to the fleet operator and ship owner have fell on deaf ears, they said.
The two persons hailing from AP are Chandrashekar Allu (29) from Vizag, third officer on the ship and Korlayya Gutta (47) from Srikakulam who is a fitter. In addition to these two, are 13 Indians from different other states, two each from Bulgaria and Ukraine and two security officers from Philippines.
The team boarded the vessel in January and despite a bad atmosphere in the ship, they decided to work, however, when things did not change, they sent a first collective letter of protest as there was no food and drinking water provided by the company. “The garbage was overloaded onboard as it has been not discharged and it has become a health concern for us.” said chief officer LPG Windsor Yevgen Bondarenko.
The new management, Antares Marine, Singapore, assured they would shift the vessel to a safe place and they sailed it to Fujairah. “We sailed without port clearance on orders from owners 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 haven’t recieved anything and we had to sail blind without any safety and risk our life on the Captain’s and owner’s order.” the crew claimed.
“But since we were refused entry into the port of Muscat and Sohar, as the vessel was sailing illegally without port clearance. We had to drop down anchor at Fujairah outer port anchorage and we were promised a supply of food, water and spare parts as the engine was broken.”
“After we reached Djibouti, the captain illegally left the port and the vessel has been detained since April,” he said.
