The crew of a ship that encountered a mine in the Black Sea appealed to the ITF

The captain of the bulk carrier Vyssos, which came across a Russian sea mine near the estuary Bystre, appealed to the ITF with a complaint against the shipowner.

This was reported on the page of the Trade Union of Marine Transport Workers Trade Union of Ukraine on Facebook.

The captain of the vessel Vyssos appealed to the ITF Inspector with a complaint that the shipowner delays the payment of wages and does not provide adequate living conditions for the crew. The ship was visited by representatives of the Trade Union, who established that the crew’s complaints correspond to reality.

“The power supply is allocated only for the lighting of the premises and emergency work. It is not enough for heating and household needs of the crew, due to which the temperature in the living quarters was 12°C at that time. Currently, the temperature in the cabins does not exceed 5-6 degrees,” the report says.

In particular, the galley and refrigerators do not work, there is no possibility to store and cook food, the crew receives ready-made lunch packages from the agent, but they do not meet the needs of half of the crew, who have certain religious habits.

“There is no possibility to cook or even heat food on the ship; there is no water for household and hygienic needs, and drinking water in bottled form consists of previously made stocks,” added the Trade Union.

The Union also noted that nine crew members are Egyptians who do not have permission to go ashore due to lack of visas. Therefore, they are forced to live and work in unsanitary conditions, which harms their physical health and moral condition.

The shipowner owes a significant amount of wages to the entire crew, and must also pay the sailors a bonus for the ship being in the war zone.

“Due to the lack of communication with the shipowner and his reluctance to solve the crew’s problems, the general condition of the sailors is rapidly deteriorating, and now they demand an immediate solution to the issues of payment of labor and the organization of decommissioning,” th Union emphasized.

The ITF inspector in Ukraine is currently maintaining communication with the ship’s captain, the agent and the representative of the Egyptian embassy in Ukraine, helping to resolve issues with salary arrears. The ship’s agent brought small heaters and also arranged for part of the crew to go ashore and spend some time in a hotel for rest. In addition, the Trade Union called on the Izmail International Seamen’s Club to join in supporting the crew. Now the issue of Interclub providing assistance to sailors in the form of some household items to facilitate their stay on the ship is being resolved.

As previously reported by USM, the Panamanian-flagged Vyssos dry cargo ship, en route to the port of Izmail to load grain, encountered a Russian mine in the mouth of Bystre in late December 2023.