The crews on board the world’s merchant fleet are the ghosts of world trade: Unseen, largely unloved and inhabiting a homeless netherworld the rest of us will never experience.
Press-ganged and shanghaied over the centuries, the lot of the modern seafarer is hardly better. When Somali pirates roamed the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, they were kidnapped for ransom and blown up by the merciless Indian Navy.
Tankers have now become collateral damage in the Ukraine war, and innocent seafarers are once again in the firing line — from both sides.
In April 2022, Kyiv sent a list of merchant vessels that had been shelled, captured, or hit with missiles by the Russian fleet in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, either in ports such as Mariupol or at anchor, to the International Maritime Organisation.
Some vessels had been damaged, several were sunk and the 1,000 seafarers from 14 countries who did not perish found themselves stuck and in need of an international rescue.
In December last year, Ukraine also began targeting merchant shipping. The first targets were vessels operating in the Black Sea belonging to the Russia-controlled “shadow fleet” or “dark fleet”, many of them rust-buckets without insurance and flying false flags to obfuscate their ownership.
Via an array of sneaky, dangerous tactics, these tankers have avoided European sanctions for years, thereby filling the coffers of the Moscow war machine with their ill-gotten gains.
The Ukrainian attacks employed the latest technology: Underwater drones. Valedictory videos circulated online. Turkey complained after some took place within its exclusive economic zone, creating a serious risks to navigation. The European Commission did not.
Only seafaring unions put their head above the parapet. “Seafarers are not a weapon of war,” said Mark Dickinson, general secretary of Nautilus International. “They are civilians simply doing their jobs, often in extremely difficult and precarious conditions.
“Regardless of the flag a vessel flies, the cargo it carries, or the politics surrounding a conflict, targeting seafarers or placing them in harm’s way is completely unacceptable.”
Seafarers should be protected, “even when working on board of ships part of the shadow fleet,” said Livia Spera, general secretary of the European Transport Workers’ Federation.
This month, someone, possibly Ukraine, upped the ante. Several Greek-owned and one Maltese-flagged tanker — not part of the Russian shadow fleet — were attacked by flying drones. Moscow said it was Kyiv, Kyiv said nothing, and Greek owners began to worry.
Without mentioning Ukraine, the Union of Greek Shipowners labelled the attacks “completely illogical, unlawful and without political reason”.
In what could be an indirect swipe at the European Union powers, the union pointed out that the attacks “directly undermine EU foreign policy”.
While the Greek Government also issued a statement of condemnation, the EU again said nothing, much to the chagrin of Europe’s largest maritime industry.
Greek owners have been allowed to carry Russian crude under certain conditions designed to keep down price. There is momentum in Brussels to end this exception, a move which would push the trade out of EU control and could bolster dark fleet numbers.
The lot of the seafarer is not a pretty one. While ship officers can be relatively well paid, ratings are not. A floor is set under working conditions by international convention, but that floor is low, and many crews, including those who refused to cross pirate-infested waters, can find themselves simply abandoned and reliant on charity, stuck in foreign ports without the right to go ashore. During Covid, a good number did not see terra firma for many months.
Hardly any ratings are European, which might be why their plight never makes Europe’s media. The European fleet is heavily dependent on third country nationals including Ukrainians and in some cases Russians too.
“There are the living, the dead, and seafarers,” it is said. This is as true today as it always has been.
Justin Stares is editor and founder of maritimewatch.eu
