The Russian sailors spent six months in Mozambique as hostages due to financial disputes between two foreign companies, said the captain of the fishing vessel, Veniamin Krevitsky, who returned to Russia on February 22 in an interview with the online publication Cascade.
According to the press service of the Kaliningrad Region Prosecutor’s Office, “Veniamin Krivitsky and Viktor Abusagitov were unable to leave the fishing boat in Maputo port for several months.”. The representatives of the company that provides services to the fishing vessel, in order to force the owner to pay maintenance costs, refused to issue documents for the sailors to enter and leave Mozambique.
Krevitsky told how he and his four partners lived as hostages. According to him, while the sailors were in another country, the shipowner paid them salaries. But before getting home it was necessary to survive.
“We had no food or electricity. There was no fuel. Well, at a temperature of plus forty degrees it is extremely difficult. We were practically without water for a month.”Krevitsky said.
To survive, the sailors tried to establish ties with the local population. There was a local boat nearby that served the canal. The sailors who were being held hostage arrived there and the locals helped and provided water.
According to Krevitsky’s wife, when they got food, they cooked it by lighting a barbecue on the terrace. To prevent the deck from catching fire, she covered herself with wet rags. We ate once a day, but it didn’t work more often.
According to the official representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation, Andrei Ivanov, the obstacle to the repatriation of Russian sailors from Mozambique was the lack of legal basis, since the provisions of the convention on maritime navigation do not apply to ships. associated with fishing. The return of Russian citizens to their homes was made possible thanks to the joint work of representatives of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office with their Mozambican colleagues.
Source: Rossa Primavera
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