Thirteen
Filipino seafarers have returned home after being stranded for over five months
aboard the abandoned livestock carrier, the International Transport Workers’
Federation (ITF) announced Monday 17 April after working to secure their release.
The repatriation marks the end of a
months-long saga involving one shady owner and two of its detained vessels in
Singapore and Australia.
The Yangtze
Harmony’s abandoned it along its crew in Singapore following the
arrest of the vessel over an unpaid fuel bill in October 2022. The owner also
stopped payments to the crew, who by April were owed $429,972 in total.
Upon
inspection, the ITF found that the Harmony’s Hong Kong-based
owner, Soar Harmony Shipping Ltd, had a history of abandoning crew and
violating safety and crew welfare rules, discovering that the company had simultaneously abandoned another vessel,
the Yangtze Fortune, along with its crew in Australia.
The Yangtze
Fortune was abandoned after the Australian Federal Court seized a
sister ship in Portland, Victoria, due to the owner’s refusal to make urgent
repairs.
After
ITF Australia, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, and the Marshall and
Port State Control coordinated to release an abandoned mariner for a family
funeral, the ITF successfully lobbied to
reduce the Fortune’s minimum manning levels, resulting in the
repatriation of 19 crew members back in January.
ITF’s
Sandra Bernal, who led the advocacy for the Harmony’s crew,
stressed that the contrasting responses of authorities in Singapore and
Australia highlight how a port state’s
approach can significantly impact affected crew members’ welfare and mental
health.
“In
Australia, efforts were made by authorities to inform crew of their rights, to
check on their welfare, and to put their human needs above the commercial
interests of the parties vying for a share of the ship’s sale value. There are
elements of this kind of approach that I would like to see more widely
adopted across port States,” said Bernal.
“We have to remember that abandoned seafarers are not criminals – they are the victims in this situation,” she added.