More than 100 thousand people continue to be on Board a cruise ship, unable to leave them. Crew members, who are forbidden to go ashore or return to their countries. The timing of the resolution of this crisis is unknown, and living conditions on Board are becoming heavier.Although most cruise ship passengers come ashore, about 100 thousand of crew members remain on the ships, found the British newspaper the Guardian. Many of them are in isolation in small cabins, some much reduced salary, and all of them are forbidden to go ashore. According to the newspaper, many of the locked boat people have virtually no contact with the outside world.”We all want to go home, we all have families,” the newspaper quoted one of such members of the crew of the cruise ship MSC Seaview, which is a month in quarantine and who have stopped paying wages. “We don’t say when we will be able to produce. We are like prisoners,” adds the newspaper.According to the representative of the company MSC, which owns the vessel, the situation is not so terrible: “We temporarily took the decision to release most of our crew members from duty. We are looking for a way… to purchase tickets… each one of them returned home… to All those who are on Board, we provide a full table, guest cabins. We have improved the menu and provided free Internet”. According to representatives of the other companies attempts of repatriation of staff faced with logistics problems — many countries have closed their borders, so to return home, the crew just can’t.According to the newspaper, the majority of ship workers — citizens of such countries as India, Indonesia and the Philippines. They get from €1 thousand to €2 thousand per month for seven-day working week. Thus, according to the authors of the investigation, they know at least about one cruise company, which stopped paying its stuck on ships staff.They refuse to help and many States in the waters of which are court. “Some of these people are, so to speak, no man’s land— the newspaper quoted a Maritime lawyer John Hickey.— They have no access to those rights that gives them their citizenship. And they are not subject to the rights of the countries in the waters where their ships are.”
The majority of the vessels sailing under the flags of Liberia and Panama, which further complicates the situation. These countries are convenient not only for its low taxes and low regulation.When the crisis with the crews of cruise ships will end, nobody knows. While in the best, oddly enough, the conditions are those crew members who got sick contracted the coronavirus. In most cases, they are sent to hospitals on shore, and after recovery they get a chance to return home, not on the ship.Andrew Kulekeev
