Indian sailors arrests in Equatorial Guinea send SOS

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11th Nov, 2022. 10:56 pm
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An international crew of 26 sailors includes the Indians. Equatorial Guinea detained the cargo ship MT Heroic Idun in August.
The ship was on its way to deliver crude oil to Rotterdam, Holland, after collecting it from Equatorial Guinean and Nigerian ports.
Concerns grew earlier this week after Equatorial Guinea announced that the ship would be handed over to Nigeria.

Sixteen Indians have requested assistance from the Indian government to return home after spending three months in the custody of Equatorial Guinea’s navy.

The sailors continue to post messages and videos on social media, saying their plight is getting worse despite India’s assurances to their relatives that it was working to ensure their safe return.

In the middle of August, Equatorial Guinea detained the cargo ship MT Heroic Idun.

An international crew of 26 sailors includes the Indians.

The OSM Maritime Group of Norway is in charge of the ship.

“The vessel and its 26 multinational crew members have now been detained in Equatorial Guinea for more than 80 days,” CEO Finn Amund Norbye said in a statement earlier this week.

“The seafarers have been treated as criminals, without any formal charges or legal process for close to three months,” he alleged. “It is nothing short of a shocking maritime injustice.”

The crew of the ship was on its way to deliver crude oil to Rotterdam, Holland, after collecting it from Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria.

The ship was instructed to depart at Nigeria’s AKPO terminal, according to Sapna Trehan, the wife of the ship’s master Tanuj Mehta, after officials stated they were unaware of their arrival.

According to Ms. Trehan’s husband, a ship pretending to be from the Nigerian navy tracked the ship as it approached Equatorial Guinea and alerted the country, which led to the ship being held when it arrived.

According to documents submitted to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the Equatorial Guinean navy detained the vessel in accordance with a marine code of conduct after receiving a warning from a Nigerian naval vessel.

The crew has since made calls to their families and shot recordings pleading for assistance.

The crew’s incarceration has not yet been addressed officially by the government of Equatorial Guinea.

“The Norwegian [ship] owners also paid €2m ($2.03m; £1.74m) because the ship had not put up the Equatorial Guinea flag when it was in its territorial waters,” Capt. Sukhpal Singh, a mariner and friend of the ship master told media.

Members of the crew had just been split up, according to Ms. Trehan, and her husband’s phone had been confiscated.

“Fifteen of them have been taken away on the Equatorial Guinea naval ship and the others remain on the MT Heroic Idun, all of them are being guarded by Naval officials,” she said.

Concerns grew earlier this week after the vice-president of Equatorial Guinea tweeted that the ship would be given to Nigeria.

“Everyone was under the impression that the crew and the ship would be released once the fine was paid to Equatorial Guinea on 28 September. But suddenly Equatorial Guinea decided to accept Nigeria’s request,” Capt. Rajesh Trehan, a retired mariner and father-in-law of Capt. Tanuj Mehta, told the media.

In videos shared by families of crew members – which also include sailors from Sri Lanka, Philippines and Poland – they are heard saying, “Please, please, please help. Let us not be taken to Nigeria.”

“One of the primary reasons why there is heightened apprehension among the crew members is because of the previous experiences of crews in Nigeria,” Capt. Trehan said.

Nigeria freed a Swiss tanker in 2021, three years after the vessel was first seized.

“These countries have a bad track record [with sailors],” says Capt. Singh. “People have just given up their careers after their experience in such countries.”

Capt. Mehta claims in a video that the sailors “will die” if they are taken to Nigeria and begs the Indian government to return them home as soon as possible. The video was sent to his wife.

“We don’t know what will happen to us, what they will do to us,” he says.

In another video, he alleges that the crew members on the ship would be forced to start the engines at gunpoint and taken to Nigeria. “We might never see our families again,” he says.

A crew member was reportedly brought to the hospital for ill health, according to a video the sailors uploaded.

V Muraleedharan, India’s junior minister for external affairs, told the media on Thursday that multiple Indian embassies were negotiating the sailors’ release with the government of Equatorial Guinea.

“The Minister for External Affairs [S Jaishankar] is regularly monitoring the situation, the families need not worry,” he said.

“Our efforts are aimed at getting our sailors back home safely,” he added.

Arindam Bagchi, the spokesman for the Indian foreign ministry, did not respond when the media contacted him.

Families of the sailors are nevertheless concerned for their safety in the meanwhile.

Sanu Jose’s wife Matilda reported that her husband had become feeble and was extremely exhausted.

“[A few days ago], they got some water and food when Indian embassy officials visited them. But after that they were [kept] in a detention center.

“Right now, I don’t know if they are safe or not,” she said.

Indian sailors arrests in Equatorial Guinea send SOS

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