ABANDONMENT: Conflicting Cargo, Mortgage Claims By Bank Stalls ITF Moves To Help Stranded Seafarers’ Aboard MV Ula

The International Transport Workers Federation (ITF)  said moves to assist the crew members aboard MV Ula was stalled by conflicting cargo claims and a mortgage claim by the Bank of Doha.

 

 

Hunger-striking seafarers abandoned by owner and flag are torn between fighting for repatriation or sticking up for their unpaid earnings

 

 

Seafarers on a hunger strike in Kuwait for more than a month face a hard struggle to win repatriation — but the majority are insisting on staying and fighting for their rights.

 

But now action to help crew members remaining on the 37,200-dwt Ula (built 1982) is being stalled by conflicting cargo claims and a mortgage claim by the Bank of Doha, said Mohamed Arrachedi, Arab world and Iran network coordinator for the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF).

 

He said the 19 seafarers who remain on board at Shuaiba are the victims of a case of “chronic severe abandonment”.

 

Arrachedi has been working for more than two years on complaints of neglect and unpaid wages from the crew as the ship traded throughout the Gulf region, long before it arrived at the Kuwaiti port — where it is now stuck — in April 2020.

 

“We know the whole situation is complicated,” he said. “But we claim that the human dimension should be given priority. We observe that the narrow line between seafarer rights and basic human rights is disappearing.”

 

Some of the crew members — now owed between 11 and 14 months of wages — have given up and left. But even walking away from their claims was a struggle.

 

“In September, six crew members were repatriated, who had asked to leave without their wages for family reasons, but it took big efforts to repatriate them,” Arrachedi said. “In this very moment, the second officer is seeking his disembarkment and repatriaiton without wages, and we do not know why this is not being done.”

 

The remaining crew includes 16 Indian seafarers and one each from Turkey, Bangladesh and Azerbaijan.

 

Some crew members have been on board the vessel for up to 28 months, according to statements by crew supplied to TradeWinds.

 

“We want to inform you that today is our 34th day of hunger strike and we will continue until we receive our pending salaries in our bank accounts,” crew members wrote on 9 February..