Mozambique: Russian sailors held in Maputo released – Lusa

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Mozambique: Russian sailors held in Maputo released – Lusa

3:50 CAT | 22 Feb 2024

File photo: Lusa

Two Russian sailors who were stranded in the port of Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, have been released and returned to Russia, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has announced.

“Thanks to the joint work of representatives of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office and their Mozambican counterparts, it was possible to return our citizens to their homeland,” the institution said on the Telegram messaging platform.

Authorities identified the sailors as Veniamin Krivitsky and Viktor Abusagitov, and explained that they had become “financial hostages” in an “ownership dispute between two foreign companies” – the ship’s owner and a Mozambican company.

The local company claimed payment for the vessel’s maintenance costs and refused to issue the documents that would allow the sailors to leave Mozambique, whose passports were being held by the Mozambican migration service.

“Assistance to sailors by the Russian Embassy was complicated by the impossibility of applying the 2006 Maritime Labour Convention, the provisions of which do not apply to fishing vessels,” the Russian ministry said.

The statement did not identify the vessel or the companies involved in the dispute.

On February 2, the Russian ambassador in Maputo, Alexandre Surikov, asked the Mozambican authorities to confiscate the fishing vessel ‘Volopas’ and release the sailors, allegedly detained for eight months in Maputo port, and dubbing the crew “victims of a purely commercial dispute”.

The crew of the 53-metre fishing vessel ‘Volopas’, which flies the Cameroonian flag and was already without fuel or electricity, were Russians, Ukrainians and a Lithuanian.

After months held in the port, the last five crew members at the end of January placed a poster on the hull of the fishing vessel asking to be allowed to return home.

Source: Lusa