The tugboat Switser-Korsakov with Russian-British team aboard is still kept by pirates in Mogadishu, Somalia, the chairman of the Vladivostok Branch of the Russian Seafarers’ Union Yuri Kurnakov told Vostok Media.
He says “there is no any trustworthy information about the captured seamen.”
The situation is even more complicated as the age of the tugboat’s captain is 70 years, chief engineer – 67 that may negatively affects their health in case of long captivity.
The ship owner Switzer Weissmuller Sakhalin doesn’t comment on the situation. The information about whether the seamen have insurance or not or who signed them is also unavailable as the tugboat stays under the flag of a foreign state. Switzer Weissmuller Sakhalin doesn’t reply to the official inquiries. Instead of that the company tries to find out who of the seamen working in the company are members of the Russian Seafarers’ Union.
Lots of questions arise: why did the vessel, provided for work near shore, follow the route through the ocean without any escort, why it doesn’t stick to the recommendation of the International Maritime Organization – going at 200 miles distance off the Somali shore, how will the vessel be freed? The Malacca Strait riving with pirates was on the way of the tugboat.
“The Russian Federation should more actively stand upon protection of its citizens,”- Yuri Kurnakov says.