British newspaper Guardian revealed that there are about 100 thousand crews of cruise ships in the world, who were stranded on board their ships due to the Corona pandemic, and they cannot return to their homes.   

The newspaper pointed out that to investigate her, he found that the workers stranded on at least 50 ships with the outbreak of corona, suffer from limited medical equipment and some of them became unpaid, and there is no end in sight to their situation.

She said that the members of the crews of these ships do not have access to the ports, and they are prevented from traveling by plane to return to their homes. "They have become a nation of stranded pariahs stranded on boats from the Galapagos Islands to the port of Dubai."

Many of them have only little contact with the outside world, making it difficult to verify their conditions, but it has been confirmed to date that at least 17 workers on these ships have died due to the Corona virus, and dozens of others have been evacuated and taken to hospitals.

Solitary confinement inside the ships and
one of the crew said - He was isolated in his room aboard one of the Italian MSC Cruise ships off South America for about a month, and he no longer gets a fee - "We all have families, and we all want to go home" .

The worker, who spoke on the Internet and asked not to be named, fearing losing his job, said that they were allowed to roam the ship, but that since one of the workers left after it was confirmed that he had a corona, everyone was ordered to stay in their rooms.

He added that they had not received any information about their date of return, and he said, "We are just in the cabin like the prisoners."

The Queen Mary cruise ship is about to enter the port of Durban, South Africa, to drop crew members who have been confirmed with the Corona virus (Reuters)

A spokesman for the company "MSC" said they made the difficult decision to suspend the operations of cruise ships, while exempting the majority of the crew members from their duties, and work to inventory everyone and return them to their homes.

The spokesman added that they provide full hospitality, free of charge, to each of the individual crew members, including housing, food and internet.

Most of them are from developing countries It
is noteworthy that most workers of cruise ships are from developing countries, such as: the Philippines, Indonesia and India, and they generally get salaries ranging from one thousand to two thousand dollars.

The newspaper said that at least one cruise line had stopped paying some of the workers trapped in their ships.

Among those who died in April were two cleaners, a waiter and a security guard who had been evacuated from ships in Florida, and an Italian ship doctor had died in Brazil. An engine technician on board a ship in the Antarctic died after 128 of the 217 people on board were injured.

Many countries have refused to help them,
and many countries - including the United States - have refused to provide even basic emergency services to these people.

Maritime lawyer John Hickey said that some of these crews are located in a region that does not belong to any state, and they were unable to obtain the rights granted to them by their countries, and they are often outside the jurisdiction of the countries in which their ships sail.

It is reported that most cruise companies are registered in countries with low taxes and low controls such as Panama or Liberia, and ships raise flags of regions such as the Bahamas or Bermuda and are not ready to care for thousands of sick crew members.