Mozambique: Russia wants crew stuck on vessel eight months in Maputo port freed

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Mozambique: Russia wants crew stuck on vessel eight months in Maputo port freed

8:17 CAT | 05 Feb 2024

File photo: Lusa

The Russian ambassador to Mozambique on Friday suggested that the Mozambican authorities confiscate the fishing vessel “Volopas” and release the sailors who have been detained for eight months in Maputo harbour, considering the crew “victims of a purely commercial dispute”.

“You can confiscate the boat, but you can’t confiscate the people. Human goods are not slaves, you can’t confiscate their passports, not let them leave, they have no guilt, they are workers,” Alexandre Surikov told Lusa on the sidelines of an event at the Ponta Vermelha Palace, the official residence of the president of Mozambique in Maputo.

On the 53-metre fishing vessel “Volopas”, flying the flag of Cameroon and already without fuel or electricity, there are Russians, Ukrainians and a Lithuanian who have been stranded for eight months in the port of Maputo.

After months of being docked, without going out to sea, the last five crew members got tired and put up a poster on the hull of the fishing vessel asking to return home, Lusa learnt during a visit to the site.

The Russian ambassador said that he has been in constant contact with the Mozambican authorities, from the ministry of foreign affairs to migration, so that the crew of the “Volopas” can be released, while helping “as much as possible” with food, water and electricity connections.

“The boat has accumulated debts, the port wants compensation, but the sailors have been suffering for more than half a year stranded in the harbour. They’ve run out of food, the electricity and water have been turned off and their passports have been seized,” said Alexander Surikov.

He calls for “more decisive action” and solutions from the port authorities and all those involved in the case, considering that the five sailors have the right to return to their homelands.

“We insist, through the authorities here, that they release these people, so that they have the opportunity to return to their homelands (…) What they ask for most is to return home, but we can’t help, because they don’t have passports, they’re confiscated by the authorities,” Surikov added.

Mr Surikov also said that the coexistence between the Russian and Ukrainian sailors on the “Volopas” is one of teamwork and solidarity, noting that the Embassy has been helping without taking into account the conflict between the two countries.

“The Ukrainians are not our enemies (…) We are the same people,” concluded the Russian representative in Mozambique.

In a request for legal assistance that the Mozambican public institute INTRANSMAR, the maritime transport regulatory authority, sent to the Maputo Maritime Court on 9 January, the precarious conditions of the scientific research vessel (which has accumulated debts of more than US$400,000 ( €371,000) in eight months in the port of the Mozambican capital) and its crew are acknowledged.

In the document sent to the court, ITRANSMAR says it has received a request for assistance from Russia, via Mozambique’s ministry of foreign affairs and cooperation, for the disembarkation of the two Russian crew members, claiming that the ship’s agent is refusing to hand over the disembarkation letter to the migration services for the purpose of issuing crew visas.

It adds that on 6 December, an ITRANSMAR team visited the ship and the crew, together with a representative of the agent, the Portmar company, and found that the five had been without wages for two months, “that the fuel was about to run out and that they only turned on the electric generator for one hour a day so that they could cook”.

“The crew had no water to drink, only water to bathe in, and they bought their food with their own money, which was only enough for one meal a day. And in terms of work, the crew said that the ship had last gone fishing in April 2021,” reads the document from the Mozambican authority.

On the same occasion, the ship’s agent explained that the shipowner he represents belongs to Iceberg Seafood Lda FZC, which formed a partnership with Miroslav Oufmtsev, resulting in Bantu Fishing, Lda, 60% owned by TEBERG and 40% by that businessman.

The agent added that the ship arrived in the country under a memorandum of understanding between Mozambique’s Oceanographic Institute and Bantu Fishing, to “do deep-sea crustacean research”, but “there was a disagreement between the partners”, who stopped paying the ship’s expenses, namely the agent, harbour, crew and migration, “which resulted in the ship owing more than US$430,000 (€399,000) to these entities”.

The agent alone claims a debt of US$30,000 (€27,800), but rejects that this is the reason for not disembarking the crew: “What he knows is that if the crew, who know the ship, disembarked, the ship would be abandoned in the harbour, putting the safety of the ship and the harbour at risk. And as an agent, he wouldn’t have the autonomy to take on board local crew members who don’t know the ship, in order to guarantee its safety.”

The ITRANSMAR investigation reported to the court also concluded that Bantu Fishing “failed to comply” with the memorandum, which expires on the 23rd, as it was supposed to provide three boats, which it did not.
It also confirmed that the vessel has a seaworthiness and radio certificate issued by ITRANSMAR, but “expired in May 2023”, and that the Scientific Research fishing licence expired on 31 December 2023.

Source: Lusa