Pakistanis adrift

Twenty-three Pakistani sailors with little food and fuel have been adrift in the Gulf of Mexico since November. After the ship´s owners, Karachi´s Tri-Star Shipping Lines, stopped paying the seamen´s wages in March 1998, and later the ship´s bills, the Delta Pride had docked for five months at the port of Tampico, Mexico. The captain of the ship, Maqsood Ahmed, had to use the ship documents, and the sailors´ IDs, as collateral to purchase essential food and fuel on credit. When the captain finally decided to flee Tampico under cover of darkness in November, the ship had accumulated debts running into thousands of dollars.

The old ship straggled across 500 km of sea and reached Brownsville, Texas, where it was stopped offshore by the coast guard on account of its rundown look and missing documentation. Since then the US coast guard and shipping agents have been trying to resolve the mess. Meanwhile, Global Ship Services of New Orleans has provided USD 15,000 which has enabled the crew to restore electricity on the ship and also buy food to last until the third week of December. "Thanks to Global Ship Services and help from some charities including the local Pakistani community, the Pakistani drifters are in a somewhat better condition now than they were when the Pakistani prime minister was vacationing in Florida a few weeks ago," says Mutahir Kazmi, chairman of the Chicago-based Pakistan Human Rights Watch. This was reference to the fact that at around the time that the Delta Pride was sneaking out of Tampico, Nawaz Sharif was sightseeing in Disneyland with his entourage of 126 officials.