Sixteen foreign ship crew members stranded at the Mombasa port over unpaid wages will receive more than Sh45 million after reaching an agreement with the owners of the vessel.
A consent filed in an admiralty court in Mombasa shows that the owners of the FV RA Horakhty will pay the crew $400,000 in wages and interest or the workers will be at liberty to auction the vessel to recover their money.
The seafarers are from South Korea (three), Indonesia (six) and Vietnam (seven). They worked on the Kenyan-registered fishing vessel on contract but they had not been paid since March 2021.
They brought an admiralty claim against the owners of the vessel, demanding payment of wages of up to $247,255 plus interest, the captain’s disbursements and repatriation costs.
The defendants, however, denied owing the crew members any money.
They also alleged that they, the captain of the vessel and the Kenya Maritime Authority had agreed to review the crew’s salaries because of the challenges they had paying the wages.
They also questioned the crew’s claim for repatriation costs.
But the seafarers, through lawyer Okello Kinyanjui, said the salaries had not been revised by either party and asked the court to strike out the defence filed by the owners of the vessel.
Before the case could proceed to full hearing, the parties entered a consent to settle the wages.
A judgment was then entered in the crew’s favour.
The crew filed the case last year under a certificate of urgency.
They lamented that their fundamental rights under the 2006 Maritime Labour Convention were violated.
Captain Seo Hyundo filed the case on behalf of the crew men.
The crew left Korea on June 16, 2020 aboard the vessel and docked at the Mombasa port in June 2021 before their employer ended communication with them.
They alleged that they were abandoned by their employer as soon as they entered Kenyan waters.
They claimed in court papers that they had to depend on well-wishers for basic needs such as food, water and medication.
They have been residing in the Kenyan-flagged dilapidated fishing vessel now docked at the Liwatoni Fisheries Jetty since June 2021.
The vessel is said to have run out of diesel, leaving the occupants in darkness and unable to communicate with people outside, including their families, because they could not recharge their phones.
Several cases of seafarers being abandoned in the Indian Ocean were reported last year.
A report by the International Labour Organization indicates that 57 ships were reported abandoned in 2021.
The vessels abandoned at the port of Mombasa in that period included the MV Nadji II, MV Jinan, MV Jelita, MV Debbie, MV Ville De Sima II, MT Jenlil, MT Beacon, FV Beira 9, FV Beira 7, FV Beira 3, and MV Aldabra.
Others were the MV Equator Royal, MV Maheswaran, MV Natacha, MV Vicko, MV Siemeni, FV Horrizont I, MV Sea Johanna, MV Nikolay Nekrasov and FV RA Horakhty. BY NATION MEDIA