Tensions are rising on a DFDS ro-pax as 12 North African migrants are kept on the vessel plying between Turkey and Ukraine.
The group has been stuck on the 25,600-gt Kaunas Seaways (built 1989) for seven weeks, locked in four guarded cabins, as neither country will accept them.
They have been travelling between Istanbul and Odessa, Reuters reported.
DFDS said the men have been violent and threatened suicide.
“There has been a tendency to violence and aggressions and they have threatened to jump overboard...so there is no alternative to locking them inside the cabins,” a DFDS spokesman told Reuters.
DFDS has brought in Turkish guards and asked UN officials on board to question the group.
At least six are from Morocco and four from Algeria.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian border service said the group intended to travel from Turkey to Romania, but boarded the wrong vessel.
DFDS believes the men accessed the ship by hiding in a trailer.
