Seven Indian sailors stranded off UAE coast for 18 months

Seven Indian sailors in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been stranded on their vessel without pay for the last eighteen months, complaining that the Indian government has failed to help them so far.

“All of us completed our contracts with the company around last October. But our owners are neither clearing our dues nor relieving us,” Captain Ashwani Kumar Kataria from Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu district told National Herald from his ship, currently anchored off the Port of Hamriyah near Sharjah.

Kataria informed NH that MV Dharma, the Panama-flag vessel, was forced to sail into Hamriyah on Monday after the company had stopped answering their calls for help.

“The ship is starting to leak and the engine is not working properly. We are also running out of essential supplies, including food. We could have sunk if we hadn’t entered Hamriyah,” he said.

The sailor shared images of the vessel, which show holes on the side.

The mariner added that the ship plied on the route of Sharjah, Ajman and Dubai, thus staying within the UAE. Being an oil tanker, the ship mostly stayed off the port at anchor.

The owner of Alco Shipping, a UAE-registered company, is a Pakistani national, Sayed Ijaz Hassan.

“The owners owe us a sum of Rs 60-70 lakh in total. We haven’t got paid for the last 18 months. They are not answering our calls and there is no other way to get in touch with them,” Kataria said.

He added that calls for help to India’s mission in the UAE had gone unheeded.

“I have been tweeting out SOS messages to Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj and PM Narendra Modi among others for the last three-four months. But we haven’t received any response from them either,” he added.

Joseph Chacko from Kandla Seafarers’ Welfare Association, a mariners’ advocacy group, told NH that there are many other ships that have been stuck in the UAE.

“I would appeal to the Indian government to identify such ships and the Indian sailors on them, and work towards bringing them back,” Chacko added.