A Kaohsiung-based Indonesian priest has urged the Maritime and Port Bureau to allow the repatriation of eight Indonesian sailors who have been stuck on their vessel for nearly six months at Kaohsiung Port.
The men have been unable to leave their Togo-registered cargo ship since it was towed into Kaohsiung Port on Feb. 23 after it lost power days earlier near Taiwan’s territorial waters, said Stella Maris Chaplain Father Ansensius Guntur, who has been visiting the sailors.
Indonesia’s representative office in Taipei has offered to pay for their return flights, but the bureau would only let the crew leave if a new crew is sent to Taiwan to operate the ship so that it would not be abandoned, the priest said.
Photo: Lee Hui-chou, Taipei Times
With the crew members not having been paid since February and the ship’s Hong Kong owner not answering messages, the odds of a crew exchange seems low as the crew have been waiting on board for six months, which has taken a toll on their mental health, Guntur said.
“If they are not sent home and if something happens, all of us will be responsible for that because we did not prevent it. Their psychological and physical condition is already really bad. For humanitarian reasons, they have to be sent home,” Guntur said.
Fauzan Salihin, the ship’s captain, told the Central News Agency in a text message earlier this month that he and his crew need help to return to their families in Indonesia.
“I have parents, a wife and children waiting for me at home. Please can you help me return home because my crew have become stressed and crazy. Sir please, six months already, the owner has not paid us our salaries, please help me go home, please,” Fauzan wrote.
The bureau told the Central News Agency that it could arrange, with the help of the Indonesian government, for most of the sailors to return home before a crew exchange is completed, leaving about one-third of the crew to deal with navigation safety issues.
However, the sailors rejected the bureau’s offer because they have no way of choosing who gets to go home and who has to stay behind, Guntur said.
“All of them want to go home. Who will choose to stay in this case? Nobody wants to stay there anymore as there is no certainty that the ship owner will send over a new crew,” Guntur said.
The bureau said that if the ship’s owner, listed on the ship’s registration as a Hong Kong company, continues to ignore communications and crew exchange issues, it would meet with relevant agencies to discuss auctioning the ship to get funds to help the sailors get paid.
It did not say when such discussions would take place.
Beijing could eventually see a full amphibious invasion of Taiwan as the only "prudent" way to bring about unification, the US Department of Defense said in a newly released annual report to Congress. The Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025," was in many ways similar to last year’s report but reorganized the analysis of the options China has to take over Taiwan. Generally, according to the report, Chinese leaders view the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities for a Taiwan campaign as improving, but they remain uncertain about its readiness to successfully seize
Taiwan is getting a day off on Christmas for the first time in 25 years. The change comes after opposition parties passed a law earlier this year to add or restore five public holidays, including Constitution Day, which falls on today, Dec. 25. The day marks the 1947 adoption of the constitution of the Republic of China, as the government in Taipei is formally known. Back then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governed China from Nanjing. When the KMT, now an opposition party in Taiwan, passed the legislation on holidays, it said that they would help “commemorate the history of national development.” That
Taiwan has overtaken South Korea this year in per capita income for the first time in 23 years, IMF data showed. Per capita income is a nation’s GDP divided by the total population, used to compare average wealth levels across countries. Taiwan also beat Japan this year on per capita income, after surpassing it for the first time last year, US magazine Newsweek reported yesterday. Across Asia, Taiwan ranked fourth for per capita income at US$37,827 this year due to sustained economic growth, the report said. In the top three spots were Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong, it said. South
Snow fell on Yushan (Jade Mountain, 玉山) yesterday morning as a continental cold air mass sent temperatures below freezing on Taiwan’s tallest peak, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Snowflakes were seen on Yushan’s north peak from 6:28am to 6:38am, but they did not fully cover the ground and no accumulation was recorded, the CWA said. As of 7:42am, the lowest temperature recorded across Taiwan was minus-5.5°C at Yushan’s Fengkou observatory and minus-4.7°C at the Yushan observatory, CWA data showed. On Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County, a low of 1.3°C was recorded at 6:39pm, when ice pellets fell at Songsyue Lodge (松雪樓), a
RSS