13 Seamen Stuck on Abandoned Vessel Appeal to Primorye Head for Help
General cargo ship abandoned and anchored off the Phillipines coast with 13 Russian seamen onboard. The cause of the seamen’ stuck is the bankruptcy of the owner company of the abandoned vessel, which has already appealed to the governor of Primorye area for help in returning home.
The seamen, crew staff of the cargo vessel SS Veles, worked for a company named Sea Service, and after presenting expired documentation to maritime authorities in the Philippines, got stuck in the Pacific Ocean. The owner company of the abandoned vessel declared bankruptcy a short time later.
In a letter to Primorye area, Governor Vladimir Miklushevsky, relatives of the seamen say the crew members hadn’t received the wages they were owed and were running out of food and fresh water. They’ve been anchored at the same spot off the coast of the Philippines since 18th of March, 2013.
It was also written in the letter, “All relatives of the stuck seamen have been told over the phone by the ship’s owner company that the abandoned cargo vessel no longer belongs to the company and that the fate of the crew members and their wages is of no concern to the company.”
Against the company owner have already been filed criminal charges for slave labor and 3 other vessels have been seized, notes the letter without giving further details.
Relatives of the stuck crew members also say they have appealed to the Primorye region transportation prosecutor as well as the International Transportation Workers Federation (ITWF), a global union of transportation employees’ trade unions, which represents the interests of transportation workers and organizes international solidarity actions.
Source: http://www.vesselfinder.com/
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