Three Indian seafarers have finally flown home after being prevented from leaving an Indonesian island for nine months in a dispute over their grounded tanker.
The trio had been staying in a hotel on the island of Nias since February when they abandoned their Gabon-flagged, 5,000-dwt bitumen tanker Aashi (built 2008) after it started sinking and efforts to rescue them failed.
Seventeen members of the crew were allowed to leave Indonesia, but the three senior officers were ordered to remain in the country even though an investigation found they had done nothing wrong and they were not charged with any crime.
One of the men said their crew manager — sanctioned by the US in 2022 — had effectively abandoned them and they had not been paid for months. The vessel’s insurer had picked up the tab for their hotel during their time in Indonesia.
India’s director general of shipping, Shyam Jagannathan, had demanded the men’s release and the case was taken up by Indian diplomats.
The ship’s chief officer Siyaab Salam said the trio learned on Friday from embassy officials that they were being allowed to leave the country.
They were taken from the island to the coastal city of Sibolga before flying to Jakarta. They flew to Mumbai on Wednesday.
“It was a shock for us, we were not expecting this to happen,” he told TradeWinds. “We were expecting to have to stay here for another three or four months. It is a miracle.”
Taking to the lifeboats
The ship was steaming from the Oman port of Shinas to Padang, Indonesia, when it started listing and anchored for repairs off the coast of Nias.
The master ordered the crew to take to the lifeboats after the situation worsened in bad weather and rescue boats could not reach the ship, according to Salam.
The trio were not allowed to return home while salvage efforts continued despite the vessel’s New Zealand insurer confirming it would honour any liabilities.
Despite the eventual return of the seafarers, the saga has raised again the issue of seafarers being used in broader shipping and international disputes.
Salam’s contract was with Aurum Ship Management, a company headquartered in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, with offices in India and Nigeria, according to its website.
Aurum was sanctioned by the US in February 2022 because of its alleged role in aiding a financier and a Turkish businessman in funding the Iran-backed Houthi regime in Yemen.
Picking up the bills
Salam said he joined the ship in August 2022 with his first contract with Aurum and was paid regularly until the ship ran aground in February this year.
Since then, protection and indemnity insurer Maritime Mutual picked up the hotel and flight costs and four months of their wages, said Salam.
But it meant they had not been paid for the last four months when they were stuck in Indonesia.
The Aashi is managed by UAE-based Al Phoenix Ship management and owned by Liberian company Aashi Shipping Inc, according to Equasis.
The company is owned by a Turkish national, according to Indian government documents.
The Indonesian authorities, Maritime Mutual and Aurum have been approached for comment.
Read more
- IMO’s Kitack Lim urges shipping stakeholders to strive for seafarer safety
- Sir David Attenborough research ship checks halted before lifeboat accident
- The ship surgeons rebuilding lives in Africa
- Drugs menace has become seafarers’ worst nightmare, Intercargo warns
- ‘All hope lost’: Death toll from UK ship sunk in the North Sea reaches five
