Several liners of the US-Norwegian company Royal Caribbean Cruises, the second largest cruise company in the world, have been anchored off the coast of Miami for more than two months. Although in mid-March all the passengers were removed from the ships, there are still tens of thousands of crew members - people from all over the world, including about 120 Russians.
70 days waiting
According to RT, Russian Yuri (name changed), people were constantly promised that they would be repatriated home on ships, but each time the shipment was transferred at the last moment.
On May 15, after another delay in the Majesty of the Seas, several hundred crew members staged a rally on deck. People hung up sheets on which they wrote appeals to the shipowner: “Do you sleep well?” and "How many more lies will there be?"
The Russians, who became eyewitnesses of the rally, told RT that the ship’s administration tried to remove the makeshift poster, but the protesters did not allow it.
Olga, who worked on one of the airliners, told RT that several compatriots flew home on May 24. Another part of the Russians is on a liner next to Barbados and is waiting to be sent home by plane - the cruise company was able to arrange with the US government to send European citizens on charter flights.
“They told us that we were flying out today, they told us to pack our things and get ready. We will fly to London, and from there someone will fly to Minsk, someone to Finland. Then we should be taken to Moscow by bus. Honestly, until recently we did not believe that we would be given tickets. We have already been promised charter flights five times and every time everything was canceled, ”Olga said.
The Russians have been waiting for their return home since March 15, when the last passengers left the ships. While the ships were anchored near Miami, the United States authorities did not provide accurate information about the number of Russian citizens on board, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
“According to available data, including those coming from compatriots themselves, about 120 Russians got stuck on liners off the US coast. Like other foreigners in a similar situation, they were forbidden to go ashore. One gets the impression that in Washington they decided to step aside from solving this problem, forcing shipowners to independently repatriate crew members and passengers of cruise liners, ”RT told the Foreign Ministry.
According to the Russian Embassy in Washington, last week the American cruise company was finally able to send several liners to European ports in the UK, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain, where they should arrive around June 4. On board are, among others, 28 of our compatriots.
“On the situation of prisoners”
Meanwhile, according to Johns Hopkins University on May 28, in the United States revealed more than 1.7 million cases of infection with a new type of coronavirus. Over 100 thousand patients died - this is the highest rate in the world. For comparison, in the UK, which ranks second in this indicator, 37.9 thousand people died.
Because of this, the American authorities established very strict rules for the repatriation of foreign citizens from cruise liners, in particular, all transportation must be carried out at the expense of the shipowner, Igor Kovalchuk, First Deputy Chairman of the Russian Professional Union of Sailors (RPSM), explained to RT.
At the same time, Kovalchuk noted that not everyone is able to work at sea and withstand constant changes in conditions.
“Now these people are actually in prison. Of course, living conditions on cruise ships are far from prison, but most people now have no occupation, so they are starting to break psychologically, especially those who were on the ship for the first time, ”he says.
To date, four alleged cases of suicide among crew members of cruise liners around the world awaiting repatriation to their homeland are already known. All have occurred in the last few weeks.
In April, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that there were about 80 thousand citizens from around the world alone aboard ships off the coast of the country. On May 13, Coast Guard spokesman Barry Lane announced that more than 61,000 crew members remain on 91 cruise ships in US ports and territorial waters.