Leaking Hull, Hazardous Cargo: Aboard a Stranded Ship No One Would Help
By Parkinson & Hinshaw, 12/10/21, Wall St. Journal
LIMASSOL, Cyprus—The cargo ship laden with 3,000 tons of
flammable sulfur was stranded off the coast of Somalia &
taking on water.

With “SOS” in the subject line, an Oct. 26 email from the
crew of the MV Haj Abdullah said the hull of the 260-ft
vessel was cracked & seawater was sloshing over the deck &
into the diesel fuel. The sailors were almost out of food,
& months had passed since the ship’s owner had last paid
them. The waters around them were notorious for piracy.

For over 2 months, the Haj Abdullah’s requests for assis-
tance had ricocheted around the int'l shipping system without
any help responding. The ship’s London-based insurer canceled
its coverage, saying the vessel was unseaworthy. The ship’s
Lebanese, Egyptian & Syrian crew had been abandoned by a
Lebanese owner. They were sailing under the jurisdiction of
Sierra Leone, whose tricolor flag fluttered above the deck.

The Sierra Leone Maritime Admin regulates 100s of ships
transporting billions of dollars of cargo, relying on a
management company operating on the outskirts of Limassol,
Cyprus. The crew petitioned the Cyprus office for help. Under
the laws of the West African nation, its maritime authorities
weren’t required to do much for the Haj Abdullah.

“An urgent solution is needed before it’s too late,” said
one email sent on behalf of the crew to the Cyprus office.
“THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE ARE IN REAL DANGER.”

“Good day,” said one of the responses from the Cyprus office.
“Please be informed the matter is being investigated &
currently being resolved.”

The trouble aboard the Haj Abdullah reflects the dysfunction
at the core of an industry responsible for 90% of global
trade. Last year, a record number of seafarers on cargo ships
were abandoned, meaning they went over 2 months without pay.
This year's on track to be worse. At present, over 1,000
sailors are stuck on ships without wages & in many cases
provisions, acc. to the Int'l Maritime Org, a UN agency.

All cargo ships have to fly the flag of some nation. Ship-
owners agree to pay nations for what amounts to a license to
fly their flag. Many of those nations, in turn, hire
management companies to oversee the ships.

Nearly all of this year’s abandoned seafarers were on ships
that sailed under the flags of small, often poor nations,
whose govts lack the resources to intervene when one of their
vessels is in trouble. Some, including Sierra Leone, haven’t
signed int'l treaties that require ships to have insurance
to pay & repatriate sailors stranded at sea. Much of the
world’s cargo sails under such flags.

For shippers, the benefits include lower taxes & fewer rules.
For crews, there are mostly risks. If a ship is abandoned
by its owner, they often are on their own.

“We've been here on the deck for 3 months,” one sailor aboard
the Haj Abdullah said in a text message to The Wall St.
Journal. He sent a picture of his crewmates holding sheets
of paper reading: “HAJ,” “ABDULLAH,” “HELP,” “US.”

The Journal spent weeks trying to contact the Lebanese
company that owns the ship, Al Marwa Shipping Ltd., visiting
Beirut addresses & trying phone numbers listed in shipping
registries. On Dec. 8, reporters reached Ghassan Bakri, who
said he's the owner. He said he had stopped paying the crew
because they had damaged the ship’s bathroom, kitchen &
cabins, & had lost $50,000 worth of diesel at sea.

“I tell them, ‘You tell me how we lose $50,000 in diesel,’”
the owner said. “I tell them, ‘OK, I stop the vessel.
I don’t pay salary.’ ”

In an email, the crew called the owner’s allegations
ridiculous. It said the damage resulted from a storm.

This week, Bakri said, he paid some of the crew’s wages.
The sailors, though, say none have been paid in full & they
remain on the ship, reluctant to leave until they’ve been
paid in full.

Journal reporters also visited the Cyprus office of the
company the Sierra Leone Maritime Admin hired to oversee
its flagged ships. An official there said the staff was too
busy to meet. The company declined to comment further.

The Sierra Leone Maritime Admin is the govt agency that
regulates Sierra Leone seaborne traffic from the capital of
Freetown. When the Journal visited that office, there were
about 20 officials tapping on mobile phones or seated behind
old desktop computers. Several staffers said they'd never
heard of the Haj Abdullah, had no idea how many ships in the
world fly Sierra Leone’s flag, & were surprised to learn the
org was administered from Cyprus.

Several days after that visit, a spokesman for the agency,
Mohammed Kamara, said in an interview that all ships flying
Sierra Leone’s flags are carefully scrutinized & monitored,
& that this responsibility lies with the company in Cyprus.
The West African country lacks qualified personnel, he said.

Sierra Leone’s govt forwarded written questions from the
Journal to the Cyprus office, which responded in a letter
to the govt, which was reviewed by the Journal. “We've been
actively involved in this case as usual,” it said. “We'd like
to assure you of our full & continuous cooperation & express
our appreciation for the incessant support we receive from
the Govt of Sierra Leone.”

Sierra Leone’s transport & aviation ministry is responsible
for the maritime admin. Balogun Koroma, who ran that ministry
until 2017, said he never was told the details of the
contracts with ships flying the nation’s flag, including
basic info such as how much Sierra Leone was paid per ship.
Six senior officials of the maritime admin were indicted on
corruption charges in June by Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption

Commission. “What goes on in that place is close to being a
mafia operation,” Koroma said. The agency spokesman denied
that allegation.

‘Difficult situation’
--------------------
The first email from the union rep of the Haj Abdullah’s
crew reached the Cyprus office of Sierra Leone’s flag admin
on Sept. 15.

“We're contacting your office to bring to your attention as
the Flag State admin of vessel, the very difficult situation
of the crew,” the rep wrote. The men on board hadn’t been
paid for 4 months, were running out of food & had been
abandoned off the Somali coast, the email said. The flag
state had a responsibility “to meet the seafarer’s basic rights,” it

said.

“We'll contact the managers,” the Cyprus office responded.
“Once we have any updates we'll inform you accordingly.”

The Haj Abdullah, a rusting, 44-yr-old bulk carrier, had
been sailing from the Persian Gulf to Tanzania, helmed by
an 11-man crew & carrying about $750,000 of sulfur, when a
storm opened a crack in the hull. Water began filling the
recessed walkways around the deck, acc. to crew members &
their union.

The diminishing diesel supply was being spoiled by seawater.
A shipping agent in a small port town in northern Somalia
agreed to front the crew enough fuel to reach Mogadishu,
in barrels delivered by fishing boats. When they reached
the Somali capital, the fuel bill hadn’t been paid, so the
ship couldn’t get any more. The Haj Abdullah was stranded.

“I have been sailing for 35 years, & nothing like this has
happened to me,” said one crew member.

On board, the men wanted to go home, but the port of
Mogadishu wouldn’t let them leave the ship. The port lacked
the facilities to manage a derelict cargo ship loaded with
sulfur. The owner had stopped responding to the crew. The
embassies of Lebanon & Egypt, whose nationals were aboard,
didn’t intervene.

The last option was Sierra Leone. On Oct. 6, the flag state
office in Cyprus indicated in an email that the matter would
be resolved imminently. “We'll revert with our updates the
soonest,” it said.

Until WWII, most cargo ships flew the flags of the nations
where they were based. Half flew the Union Jack. U.S.
shipping companies enjoyed protection from the U.S. Navy
but had to hire unionized American workers.

Although flying another country’s flag meant forgoing
American protection at sea, it also meant companies could
skirt U.S. regulations & pay lower wages to nonunionized
sailors. After WWII, more of them went that route.

Flags of convenience
------------------
Today, over 40% of the world’s cargo sails under 3 flags:
those of Panama, Liberia & the Marshall Islands. In recent
years, other developing countries have entered the business,
offering less expensive registry, tax benefits, less scrutiny.

One of the fastest-growing flags in the world is Mongolia,
a landlocked country. San Marino, another landlocked nation,
opened a registry this year.

Sierra Leone flagged ships now carry twice as much cargo—
almost 2 million tons a year—as they did in 2012, according
to U.N. data. Last year, bulk carriers flagged to Sierra
Leone carried three times the tonnage of those flying
American flags.

Govts of low-income nations often are unwilling or unable
to help abandoned sailors. The growth of a few giant
shipping companies has squeezed smaller players, which tend
to fly low-cost flags & are often one mishap away from
being unable to afford their ships.

Sometimes when owners abandon ships, ports require the
crew to stay aboard. More often, sailors choose to do so,
believing the only way to get paid is to wait until the
owner sells the vessel.

Since 2013, ships have been required by govts that have
signed the Maritime Labour Convention to retain insurance
for abandonment. When they do, insurance companies usually
step in to give sailors 4 months wages & a ticket home.
In practice, owners often stop paying their premiums as soon
as they get their flags, acc. to the Int'l Transport Workers’

Federation, a trade union. When that happens, flag states
are supposed to delist the ship, but in practice they often
don’t, acc. to the ITF & maritime-law specialists.

“Abandonment is the cancer of the shipping industry,” ITF
said in a written statement. “The only way we'll see change
is if flag states start to own up to their responsibilities.”

1/3 of the nearly 400 ships flying the flag of Togo currently
lack insurance, acc. to an unpublished ITF report. That
West African country had more ships abandoned in 2019 than
any other nation, the report said. Togo’s maritime agency
didn’t respond to requests for comment.

One of them was the MV Onda, which was sailing along the
coast of Cameroon in 2020 when the owner abandoned it. The
mostly West African crew spent over a year aboard, unpaid &
unable to make their way home. To survive, they drank rain-
water & cooked fish they caught over small campfires on deck.

“I'm tired of the conditions we're living thru,” gaunt crew
member Luis Alberto Veloso said via video in January. “I
can't endure these conditions any longer.”

The company administering the Togo flag, jointly based in
Greece & Lebanon, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Alco Shipping Services LLC, a United Arab Emirates-based
owner of 12 cargo ships, abandoned crews 7 times over a
4-year period, acc. to the ITF. In 2018, the Indian govt
blacklisted Alco after dozens of its citizens were abandoned
on several of the company’s Panama-flagged ships for 22 months.

In January, one of its vessels, a Panamanian-flagged cargo
ship, ran aground on a beach in Umm Al Quwain emirate, a
popular weekend getaway spot outside Dubai. The crew had been
living aboard the abandoned ship for 4 years before a storm
broke its anchor line & sent it adrift, acc. to the crew.
Another of the company’s ships—also flagged to Panama—floated
for 3 years, abandoned off the coast of Tunisia, before the
sailors went home in 2019. Alco Shipping didn’t respond to
requests for comment, nor did Panama’s Maritime Authority.

The ITF consistently ranks Sierra Leone one of the world’s
worst flags, based on sailor pay, lack of ship inspections
& abandonment. It says none of the vessels flying the Sierra
Leone flag are based in the country. The union calls it an
“end of life” registry, one of the few nations willing to
flag decaying ships other jurisdictions consider unsafe.

Last year, 18 Syrian mariners were abandoned for 5 months
aboard the Sierra Leone-flagged MV Hannoud-O, a livestock
carrier transporting 1000s of sheep. Ten sailors from China
& Myanmar were abandoned on the Sierra Leone-flagged Xiang Fa
cargo ship from July until last week, acc. to the
Int'l Labour Org, a U.N. agency.

The flag business was intended to raise revenue for Sierra
Leone, one of the world’s poorest countries. Details of the
contract between its govt & the Cyprus-based flag admin
aren’t public. One govt official in Freetown said Sierra
Leone receives 40% of the revenue, while the Cyprus-based
company receives 60%. Outside of its HQ, a billboard states
that an annual shipping license costs $900 and can be
processed in 1-3 days.

The maritime admin recently proposed a bill to improve safety,
and asked for a 20% budget increase “so that the admin can
meet its core functions,” said the spokesman, Mr. Kamara.
Life jackets, for example, cost $80 each, Kamara said, an
unmanageable expense if the govt has to buy them for the
1000s of sailors under Sierra Leone’s flag.

Pleas for help
------------
On the Haj Abdullah, then marooned off the Somali coast
for nearly two months, the food supply was dwindling. The
foul-smelling mix of seawater & fuel was washing across the
deck. The crew took turns pumping it thru a plastic hose
into the ocean. Daytime temps neared 100 degrees F. The fuel
was almost gone. The sailors were sleeping in life jackets
in case the ship sank in the darkness.

Panicked calls from their families were coming in at odd
hours, asking the men if they had made it off the ship.
Seawater was lapping into burlap sacks of sulfur, spoiling
the yellow powder, which was exuding an acrid odor.

On Oct. 18, the ship insurer, the global agency Thomas
Miller, ended its coverage. Now there was no underwriter to
help pay for repairs, wages and getting crew members home.

On Oct. 25, the union sent another plea to Cyprus: “We'd
like to inform and get in touch with you again in regards
of the extreme situation of unsafety,” the email began.
“The seafarers are in total lack of food & provisions &
the owners aren't responding.”

Nearly 24 hours later, the Cyprus office replied. It was
in contact with Thomas Miller “and trying to find a
solution for this matter,” the email said. The trouble was
in Somalia, it said. “It seems that the port authorities
don't cooperate,” it said.

By mid-October, the wire shelves in the ship’s pantry were
empty save for a few scattered onions, limes & potatoes.
To eat, the crew rationed the potatoes & cast lines into
the sea. “If we caught fish, we'd have great joy,” one
crew member told the Journal.

Bakri, the owner, said Wednesday that he had spent thousands
of dollars buying food for them. He said he doesn’t believe
the crew.

On Nov. 4, at 1:11 a.m., the union sent another plea: Water
was now rushing in faster than it could be pumped out.
“The situation on the ship has suddenly aggravated,” it said.

Later that day, an official from the flag-state office in
Cyprus responded with its first concrete offer of help: It
would send an inspector. Acc. to the crew, no such inspector
ever arrived.

With no insurance or help materializing, Safe Sea Services,
the Beirut-based company the Lebanese owner hired to manage
the vessel, paid $27,000 for divers to mend the cracked hull.

Recently, the repaired ship was able to continue to the
Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam. It's currently anchored
there, awaiting a berth to discharge its hazardous cargo.
The crew, living mostly on watermelons, eggplants, onions
& eggs, is still on board.

In an email Friday, the crew said: “We need to get paid the
rest of our salaries & be repatriated to our homes. We're
tired, very tired, & we've never suffered like this before.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/abandoned-ships-hazardous-cargo-global-shipping-11639148303

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