You're reading: Ukrainian sailors freed from captivity in Nigeria

After nearly a year of sweltering incarceration in a Nigerian port, 23 crew members of the Ukrainian freighter Dubai Valour are on their way home.

Russian diplomats standing in for Kyiv, which does not maintain a Nigerian legation, achieved the release after a week of reportedly furious and sometimes threatening behind-the-scenes negotiations.

The captain, first mate, radio man and chief mechanic remain aboard pending a court decision about the dispute that sparked the sailors’ detention. Other than suffering from boredom and a monotonous diet they are in good condition, their government said.

‘We can confirm that those guys are okay and we are monitoring the situation,’ Serhy Borodinkov, a Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman told the Post. ‘They will have to stay on board until the court decision. But they are in good shape.’

But there were ominous reports in the Nigerian press that the seamen would be ‘executed by shooting’ by local authorities.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Egypt, Ivan Kuleba, returned from Nigeria on Thursday after visiting the remaining captives. He said their court hearing had been postponed to an unspecified date but the seamen were fine.

‘I spoke with the captain,’ Kuleba said. ‘He is in high spirits … he does not consider himself guilty.’

The Dubai Valour’s Nigerian problems began last August when a large wave struck the cargo ship, washing overboard into the Indian Ocean drilling equipment consigned to the Lonestar Drilling Company of Sapele, Nigeria.

Lonestar director and powerful local businessman Chief Humphrey Idisi sued, claiming negligence by the Valour’s crew had lost his company $17 million.

Lawyers for the Azov Shipping Company, which operates the vessel, disagreed with Idisi’s valuation of the cargo. A surveyor eventually set the loss at around $200,000. The Sapele court agreed with the independent surveyor, ruling last November that the $17 million demand was excessive.

A powerful and well-connected businessmen, Idisi used his influence to have the local police confiscate the crew’s passports and visas, effectively interning the Ukrainians.

Conditions aboard the Valour deteriorated. Although supplied basic food and minimum energy by local chandlers, the climate took its toll on the 30 man crew. By the end of the year crew members had fallen ill from a variety of illnesses, including malnutrition, intestinal disorders, and malaria.

‘Vermin ran rampant,’ a Ukrainian newspaper reporter, who wrote about the sailors’ plight , told the Post. ‘Rats, roaches, and more exotic tropical citizens all became guests of traditional Ukrainian hospitality.’

By March Ukrainian diplomats were working to free the crew of the Valour. Lagos authorities appeared – at least overtly – willing to assist, but could not persuade Idisi to heed the court decision.

A Ukrainian diplomat, Andrei Sokorchuk, called Idisi a ‘terrorist’ after meeting him earlier this month. A $1 million bond paid to the Sapele court by the Valour’s owners also had little effect and the ship’s third party liability insurer UKP &I Club, paying all the bills for the Valour’s unplanned Nigerian stay, went for publicity to the press in the hope of exerting pressure on the Nigerian Government. UKP&I Club Manager Thomas Miller called the Nigerians’ behaviour ‘unprecendented in civilized society.’

Meanwhile anxious relatives of the detained sailors are becoming increasingly worried and angry.

‘Those Africans have grabbed my husband like some animal in the jungle,’ inveighed Julia Marveevich . ‘And our diplomats are doing nothing. It’s a scandal!’

A coup last month in Nigeria also complicated and further delayed matters although the new Nigerian ruler, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, has proved more amenable to Russian pleas than his predecessor, Sani Abacha.

On July 6 a team of Russian diplomats, with an order to release the Valour’s crew freshly-signed by Abubakar in hand, drove from Lagos to Sapele.

Chief Idisi and about 80 tribal supporters confronted the Russians not with words but with stones and the diplomatic delegation retreated without obtaining the crew’s release.

But that very assault on Russian diplomatic staff seems to have been the lever used by Moscow to obtain the Ukrainians’ release. Moscow apparently demanded their freedom as the price for Russia’s not taking official umbrage at the assault on its diplomatic representatives Odessa shipping industry professionals believe.

The freed crew members were in Moscow waiting to return home on July 30.

It was not immediately clear whether Azov Shipping Company lawyers would represent the remaining crew at the court hearing or whether the ship’s Captain, Oleksandr Shulgin, would take on the job himself. Shulgin apparently wants to show a video tape demonstrating how huge waves, not crew negligence, caused the loss, Kulba said.

As well as deciding about the cargo loss, the court is also supposed to rule on who must pay the $260,000 bill for the Valour’s 14 month stay in Sabele.