Twenty-nine Romanian sailors, members of the crew of a British ship detained in the Egyptian Adabiya Port for technical difficult ties are asking for the support of Romanian authorities to be able to get their outstanding wages and return to the country. The representative of the International Transporters (ITF) in Romania, Adrian Mihalcioiu, said the RO-RO “Olympus”, with a crew made up of 35 sailors – 29 Romanians and six Georgians – was arrested two months ago in the Port of Adabiya, Egypt, because of technical malfunctions: ‘The responsible party is the ship owner, who did not do the required repairs on time. The debt representing stationing fees and crew salaries have added to that. The approximate sum is USD 55,000 owed to the port authorities and USD 200,000 owed to the crew. The sailors were last paid in January’. According to him, the Romanian Government, though the Ministry of Transport, should do more: “There should be some regulations for crewing agencies. It is practically incompetence’.
