"India Blacklists Two UAE Companies for Abandoning Seafarers" 30 Mar 2018

The Government of India has blacklisted two companies from United Arab Emirates (UAE) for seafarer abandonment.The companies in question are the shipping and management firm Shah Al Arab Marine Agency and M/s Alco Shipping Services LLC. The decision was prompted after Indian seafarers were left stranded in Dubai for 22 months on board eight ships. The directorate said that seafarers were unpaid for months and hadn’t been repatriated after their contract completion. However, despite these issues being public, the companies in question continue to recruit Indian seafarers and several recruitment agencies have been found to have deployed seafarers to these vessels. The government also warned that future recruiting should not be conducted for the said ships and companies. As World Maritime News reported...seafarers, comprising nine Indian, three Pakistani, one Sri Lankan and one Myanmarian national, manning the UAE-flagged products tanke...owned by Alco Shipping Services, had their basic human rights breached.Maritime charity Human Rights at Sea (HRAS) informed that the crew had been stranded on an unsafe vessel, anchored off the coast of UAE, without fresh food or fresh water, unpaid and denied access to medical treatment. [Refers to Shah Al Arab Marine Agency and M/s Alco Shipping Services LLC].