Why India tops the list of abandoned sailors

Manas Kumar* has been abandoned on a cargo ship in Ukrainian waters since April.

The Indian seaman was part of a crew of 14 transporting popcorn to Turkey from Moldova when the vessel was raided on 18 April, as it made its way down the Danube river which divides Ukraine and Romania.

Ukraine claimed the vessel, Anka, was part of Russia's "shadow" fleet, which it said was being used to sell "looted" Ukrainian grain to third countries.

But Mr Kumar, who is Anka's chief officer, said that the vessel was running under the flag of Tanzania and was managed by a Turkish company.

But exactly who owns the ship is not clear from the papers provided by the crew, made up of Mr Kumar, five other Indian nationals, as well as two Azerbaijanis and six Egyptians.

All are still on board, five months later - despite Ukrainian authorities informing them they were free to leave as they were not under investigation, Mr Kumar said.

The problem is disembarking means the crew losing their salaries - amounting to $102,828 by June all together, according to a joint database of abandoned ships maintained by International Labour Organization (ILO) and International Maritime Organization (IMO).

The BBC has reached out to the ship's management and owners on details provided by the crew.

Mr Kumar says that the crew was not aware of the ship's past at the time of taking the job. Now stuck in a situation far beyond their control, the crew wants a quick resolution.

He says the owner and Indian shipping officials keep asking us for one more day to resolve the crisis but nothing promising has come out yet.

"This is a war zone. All we want is to return home quickly," he told the BBC.

India is the second-largest supplier of sailors and crew of commercial ships globally.

But it also tops the list of crew members known as "abandoned seafarers" - a term used by 2006 Maritime Labour Convention to describe the situation when shipowners sever ties with the crew and fail to provide them for repatriation, regular provisions and wages.

According to the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), which represents seafarers globally, there were 3,133 abandoned sailors across 312 ships in 2024 - of which Indian nationals accounted for 899.

For many, leaving the ship without a salary is not possible - especially if they have already paid hefty sums to agents for landing the job or for acquiring training certifications, Mohammad Gulam Ansari, a former seafarer who helps repatriate Indian crew from other parts of the world, tells the BBC.