Eight Indonesian crewmen who had been confined to a cargo ship in Kaohsiung Port for over eight months have been allowed to disembark and are now awaiting a flight back to their home country, the Maritime and Port Bureau said Friday.
They left the ship Friday and were being housed in a shelter in Kaohsiung managed by the Indonesian Economic and Trade Office (IETO), the bureau said in a statement. They are expected to return to Jakarta, Indonesia, on Saturday on a flight from Kaohsiung International Airport, it said.
The eight Indonesians, along with one Chinese crew member, had arrived on Feb. 23 on the Hong Kong-registered vessel the Jian Ye that had been towed into the southern port after it lost power in waters near Taiwan.
Under Taiwan’s regulations, the nine crew members could not all disembark until a new crew came to relieve them, as such a vessel cannot be left in port with less than one-third of its crew.
At the time, the eight Indonesian members of the crew could not decide which three of them should remain on the ship, so they all opted to stay, and the vessel’s owner did not have enough money to hire a replacement crew, according to the Maritime Port Bureau.
In a joint letter to CNA in September, the eight Indonesian crew members said they had not received their regular wages, and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications was forcing them to remain on the ship.
For the past eight months, Catholic priest Ansensius Guntur and the IETO had been taking food and basic necessities to the sailors on the Jian Ye, a 1,395-ton vessel owned by a Hong Kong company.
Guntur had also questioned the legality of the Indonesian sailors being made to remain on the ship after their contracts ended on Sept. 6, when they also signed a work termination agreement with their employer.
According to the agreement, each sailor would receive US$700 (NT$22,482) in cash, and they agreed to waive their rights to file civil or criminal lawsuits or complaints.
The agreement also said air tickets and relevant expenses would be provided to the Indonesians to fly from Kaohsiung to Jakarta.
In order to facilitate the return of the sailors, the Maritime and Port Bureau said, it asked the ship owner to employ two Taiwanese crew members, who would remain with the Chinese sailor on the vessel as one-third of the original number of crew members.
After leaving the ship on Friday, a 22-year-old Indonesian sailor told CNA he was very happy to be finally going home and was looking forward to seeing his mother and other family members.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel