Mission to Seafarers helps repatriate stranded crew

The last 10 crew members of a cruise liner stuck in Mombasa for five months have finally been repatriated after being helped by The Mission to Seafarers.

The seafarers onboard the Royal Star were part of a 130-strong crew operating the 5,600-ton vessel which sailed around the Indian Ocean. When the shipowners ran into financial difficulty, the majority of the crew were repatriated home with only part of the wages they were owed.

The crew contacted the Mission to Seafarers chaplain, the Rev Michael Sparrow, in the vessel's home-port of Mombasa and asked him to negotiate with the company on their behalf. Mr Sparrow met with management and was told that the company was suffering financial problems due to a downturn in Kenyan tourism.

The ten men who stayed behind as lay-up and dry-docking crew were given repeated assurances that their wages would be paid and that they would be sent home. Instead, the shipowners stripped the vessel of anything valuable and fuel ran so low that the men were forced to sleep on an upper deck because of a lack of lighting and air conditioning.

"The crew cabins were in darkness because of the lack of power, and the seafarers had very limited access to fresh water," said the Mombasa chaplain, the Rev Michael Sparrow. "At the end of July the shipping company stopped supplying food and the Mission to Seafarers in Kenya had to feed the men."

The Kenyan High Court had ordered the ship to be sold to pay the crew and other creditors. But when the seafarers heard the sale could not be completed before October at the earliest morale fell so low that Fr Sparrow asked the International Transport Workers' Federation to fund the men's repatriation.

"There was great solidarity among the men," Mr Sparrow said. "Nine of them could have been flown home by their crewing agency in the Philippines, leaving their Indonesian colleague behind. But they preferred to wait for the ITF so they could all leave together."

The seafarers finally left for home on September 16 and are hoping that the sale of the ship will settle their outstanding wage claims. Crew members who left in May are also banking on the sale to get their outstanding wages paid.

The Royal Star was initially forced into harbour through technical difficulties in April. The operating company claimed that its subsequent financial problems were caused by a downturn in Kenyan tourism. Over the following weeks, however, it became clear that there had been mounting problems in recent years with pay allotments falling severely behind.

"When a company pays its crew late, they take it for granted that they can get away with treating them badly," said Mr Sparrow. "Seafarers are the life-blood of the shipping industry and as such, should be afforded the same care attention as the cargo or people the ship they are working on are carrying."

The promised balance of the salaries remains unpaid.