«Sea Prison: COVID-19 Has Left Hundreds Of Thousands Of Seafarers Stranded

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Workers at the Port of Baltimore walk down the stern ramp of a vessel shipping vehicles.

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Aakib Hodekar, a seafarer from India, has been aboard a ship for six months. Due to COVID-19, his contract has been extended for an additional two months. Unexpected extensions are the new norm for seafarers all over the world.

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The Rev. Mary Davisson, executive director and port chaplain of the Baltimore International Seafarers’ Center, delivers personal items to seafarers who are not allowed off ships.

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Shipping vessels are docked in the Port of Baltimore this month, waiting to be loaded or unloaded. Seafarers are not allowed off the ships due to COVID-19.

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Shipping vessels are docked in the Port of Baltimore this month, waiting to be loaded or unloaded. Seafarers are not allowed off the ships due to COVID-19.

Claire Harbage/NPR

Marzougui says it was tough for him as a captain when his crew asked when they were going to leave the ship.

«I even heard a few people talk about faking or actually hurting themselves for real so they could go home, he says.

Marzougui says several times, the bigger shipping companies organized special flights to get crews home, at considerable cost. Still, he worries that not enough attention is being paid to the seafarers’ situation. «I think that we’re not a priority because we’re a hidden workforce, he says.

And while it’s tough now for many seafarers to get off the ships, there are others still waiting to get on — which means they’re losing income.

International maritime organizations have been pushing governments and companies for more protections for the seafarers. The Neptune Declaration on Seafarer Wellbeing and Crew Change committing «to take action to resolve the crew change crisis has been signed by some 300 shipping, logistics and transport businesses, as well as the World Economic Forum.

And late last year, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution urging countries to designate seafarers as key — or essential — workers, a designation that would allow them to get off ships and would help repatriation of stranded seafarers.

The International Transport Workers Federation’s Cotton says that represented real progress in the hope of getting regular crew changes.

But then new variants of COVID-19 began cropping up.

«I think we felt just in December, we kind of got it to a place where it was beginning to be manageable, he says. «And then we see immediately the third wave. The different countries are closing their borders again.

Meaning those who move most of the goods on which the world depends will likely have to stay at sea a bit longer.