More than 1,000 sailors are stuck on ships without wages and often provisions. This is the story of 11 of them abandoned on a leaking ship off the coast of Mogadishu with 3,000 tons of sulfur on board and little food.
, according to the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency.
The Journal spent weeks trying to contact the Lebanese company that owns the ship, Al Marwa Shipping Ltd., visiting Beirut addresses and trying phone numbers listed in shipping registries. On Dec. 8, reporters reached Ghassan Bakri, who said he is the owner. He said he had stopped paying the crew because they had damaged the ship’s bathroom, kitchen and cabins, and had lost $50,000 worth of diesel at sea.
Journal reporters also visited the Cyprus office of the company the Sierra Leone Maritime Administration hired to oversee its flagged ships. An official there said the staff was too busy to meet. The company declined to comment further. Sierra Leone’s transportation and aviation ministry is responsible for the maritime administration. Balogun Koroma, who ran that ministry until 2017, said he never was told the details of the contracts with ships flying the nation’s flag, including basic information such as how much Sierra Leone was paid per ship. Six senior officials of the maritime administration were indicted on corruption charges in June by Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption Commission.
The diminishing diesel supply was being spoiled by seawater. A shipping agent in a small port town in northern Somalia agreed to front the crew enough fuel to reach Mogadishu, in barrels delivered by fishing boats. When they reached the Somali capital, the fuel bill hadn’t been paid, so the ship couldn’t get any more. The Haj Abdullah was stranded.The Haj Abdullah was manned by a crew of 11 and carrying about $750,000 of sulfur.
One of the fastest-growing flags in the world is Mongolia, a landlocked country. San Marino, another landlocked nation, opened a registry this year. Since 2013, ships have been required by governments that have signed the Maritime Labour Convention to retain insurance for abandonment. When they do, insurance companies usually step in to give sailors four months wages and a ticket home. In practice, owners often stop paying their premiums as soon as they get their flags, according to the International Transport Workers’ Federation, a trade union.
“I am tired of the conditions we are living through,” gaunt crew member Luis Alberto Veloso said via video in January. “I cannot endure these conditions any longer.” The ITF consistently ranks Sierra Leone one of the world’s worst flags, based on sailor pay, lack of ship inspections and abandonment. It says none of the vessels flying the Sierra Leone flag are based in the country. The union calls it an “end of life” registry, one of the few nations wiling to flag decaying ships other jurisdictions consider unsafe.
Panicked calls from their families were coming in at odd hours, asking the men if they had made it off the ship. Seawater was lapping into burlap sacks of sulfur, spoiling the yellow powder, which was exuding an acrid odor. By mid-October, the wire shelves in the ship’s pantry were empty save for a few scattered onions, limes and potatoes. To eat, the crew rationed the potatoes and cast lines into the sea. “If we caught fish, we would have great joy,” one crew member told the Journal.
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