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Stuck at sea for years, a sailor's plight highlights a surge in ship abandonment
The United Nations over the last decade has logged an increasing number of crew members abandoned by shipowners around the world.
The number of cases is at its highest since the U.N.’s labor and maritime organizations began tracking abandonments 20 years ago, spiking during the global pandemic and continuing to rise as inflation and logistical bottlenecks increased costs for shipowners. Thousands of miles from Saleh, on the west coast of the United States, Reyner Dagalea spent three months in Westport, Washington, scrubbing the fish hold of a tuna ship, washing the deck, and playing solitaire — anything, he said, to keep his mind off the money his family in the Philippines was waiting on. Sea lions gather on the docks in front of the ship Dayna S, right, a McAdam’s Fish boat where seafarer Reyner Dagalea of the Philippines lived for months last year while waiting for backpay, in Westport, Wash., on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024.
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