No fewer than five crew members have been abandoned off the coast of United Arab Emirate sea for four years without salaries.
The crew members have not received wages for 32 months and were forced to remain on the ship due to expired documents.
The five crew members onboard the Panama-flagged MT Iba have remained stranded, as the vessel is grounded on the beach.
It was reported that the company owes the crew $230,000 (£170,000) in unpaid wages, while the company was blacklisted by the Indian government in 2018 due to abandonment cases.
This was contained in a statement by Charity’s Regional Director in the Middle East and South Asia, Rev Andy Bower-man.
Abandoned by the vessel’s owner, their wages unpaid for 32 months, the five-person crew of the $4m (£2.8 million) Iba are in limbo. If they leave the ship, they will lose their claim to the hundreds of dollars owed to them, the statement said.
The statement added that the stranded seafarers have been forced to rely on charities for food and water.
The Chief Engineer of the ship said, he had to cancel university education for his children and cannot afford medical bills for his daughter who has heart problems.
Bowerman said the Chief Engineer and the second Engineer from Pakistan have been on board since July 2017, while the cook from India and two other seafarers, also from India, joined in late 2018 and 2019, respectively.
The statement said the crew could not go ashore as they risk being detained for not having the right documents, as the Chief Engineer’s passport had expired.
The Tide reports that international law prohibits “ghost ships” at sea without crew because they are a safety hazard, which is another barrier for the stranded seafarers.
The Mission to seafarers that provided food to the men last month hopes that the negotiations will be fruitful and the seafarers will at last go home.
The statement added that the UAE was discussing a law to seize abandoned ships.