They lack food and water
UN calls for help for 1,000 stranded sailors
4/9/2022 2:54 am
According to the International Maritime Organization, more than a hundred ships are stranded in the besieged port city of Mariupol and along the entire coast of the Sea of Azov. Essential supplies are running out. The United Nations are urging rapid relief efforts.
The UN is calling for “urgent” relief measures for around a thousand seafarers stranded on merchant ships in Ukrainian ports and waters. As the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) announced, more than a hundred ships have not been allowed to leave Ukrainian ports and waters since the beginning of the Ukraine war. They therefore asked the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the aid organization Doctors Without Borders to “take urgent action” to help supply the ships.
“In addition to the dangers posed by attacks, many of the affected ships lack food, fuel, drinking water and other essential supplies,” the appeal reads. “As a result, the situation of seafarers from many countries is becoming increasingly unsustainable,” declared the ILO and IMO.
According to the IMO, at least a thousand seafarers are stuck in the port of the besieged port city of Mariupol and on ships in the Sea of Azov. In March, the ILO called on Russia to end the Ukraine war “immediately and unconditionally”.
Since the southern coast of the country with the most important ports is blocked by the Russian invasion, Ukraine has great difficulties exporting its goods. Kyiv is therefore looking for alternative routes by land. However, this is hampered by logistical challenges and bureaucratic hurdles, as industry representatives and commodity traders complain. 10,320 wagons – about half the total number – are waiting at a junction near the village of Izov, says Valeriy Tkachev of the state railway company Ukrzaliznytsia.