May 16, 2023
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Stranded seafarers on board cruise ship Marcella Discovery anchored in Mumbai since April last year finally got permission to release the Indian crew. The seafarers of the cruise will go through the mandatory COVID test and be quarantined in a port trust-building before being released further. Maharashtra Chief Minister, Uddhav Thackeray’s office released a press note regarding stating this.
The ship has about 146 seafarers and they will be disembarked after spending 37 onboard.
On Tuesday night, the cruise was granted permission by the Home Minister so that seafarers can sign-in and sign-off Indian ship crew at different ports which will help more than 40,000 seafarers.
Earlier the crew appealed to the Indian government for crew transfer on an urgent basis.
The ship was scheduled to travel to Cochin, New Mangaluru, Goa, and Mumbai from April 2 to April 6 last year but the coronavirus outbreak prevented this.
On March 14 last year, the cruise passengers were released at Laem Chabang, Thailand and the crew traveled to Cochin on April 12 along with the ship.
At Cochin, they weren’t allowed to disembark so they moved to Mumbai on April 14 last year.
But there too nothing progressed and the seafarers were waiting for disembarkation permission since then. The cruise had repeatedly stated that none of the seafarers were covid infected.
Now that they got the permission, the will disembark the Indian crew and sail to Norway
Reference: hindustantimes.com
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