Dilemma for fishers

ABANDONED: FISHERMEN LEFT HIGH AND DRY ON DOCKED VESSEL >>> Crew risk losing salaries if they flout obligations and jump ship.

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Abandoned for months on their fishing boat off West Africa, Indonesian sailor Surono and his shipmates face a dilemma: return home without almost a year's wages, or stay on the docked vessel.

He is among a growing number of migrant workers abandoned by shipowners, who flout their obligations and desert crews without paying the salaries owed.

"My family cries because I can't get any money. My children and wife need money to eat," said Surono, 47, who, like many Indonesians goes by one name, from the abandoned ship in Cape Verde.

"We want to go home, but if we go home without money, then what? We've been working ourselves to the bone out at sea. How can we just be abandoned like that?"

The engine technician flew from Indonesia to Namibia in March last year, to work onboard the Portuguese-flagged Novo Ruivo, a tuna longliner fishing boat.

But when they docked at Mindelo in Cape Verde in September to offload their catch, the owner left with the crew's passports and without paying their wages.