Even if he could manage the ship, a random crew member is highly unlikely to have resources to care for a ship like that... what value is there in assigning him this responsibility? They just punishing someone for the sake of it?
The article doesn't state it really explicitly but I believe he was able to decline but maybe not aware of when that decision would need to be made - specifically this passage here:
> "I can't force a judge to remove the legal guardianship," a representative [of the shipping company] told us. "And I can't find a single person on this planet - and I've tried - to replace him."
> Mohammed, they said, should never have signed the order in the first place.
It sounds like he signed a thing without fully understanding the ramifications of it - some eygptian official might have pulled a sneaky to trick him into signing it without full knowledge of the consequences or he may have simply acted unwisely but, either way, I'd hold the shipping company completely at fault for letting this situation develop - they had options to replace him (for instance, one of the actual owners could've stepped up and owned their error), or provided clear guidance and legal advice to the crew members.
The fact that the captain GTFO'd before any of this really started to go down really reinforces that this guy was left holding the short end of the stick and the company itself is pretty insanely slimy for not, at least, attempting to continue to support him.
Swimming to shore to get fresh water is a seriously messed up scenario.
Why? Then there would be someone else stuck in that situation. The problem is almost entirely with the Egyptian authorities. Such a situation shouldn't even be possible to develop. The first mate in the article might not have understood the ramifications of what he signed, but the Egyptian court certainly did.
There are all kinds of reasons for why a shipping company would be unable to help. That doesn't mean it should leave a person in a legal limbo. That's on the country rather than the company.
I'm surprised the guy didn't just leave. A country whose laws don't respect you doesn't deserve respect in return.
The CEO was the right person to to replace him immediately until they could make it a sufficiently attractive proposition that someone else would want to do it. You know by the usual means. Pay, supply drops, fuel for power etc.
The shipping company's CEO is 100% responsible for not dealing with the situation properly because they absolutely did not do that in any way, shape or form. It's so bad I would have no issue with the company being blacklisted as a criminal organisation.
And if the company went bankrupt or the CEO suddenly died/disappeared? Then what? There could be any number of reasons why a company might be unable to do what they need to do. The guy is still stuck there then, because it all rests on the shipping company rather than the country whose government is holding him there.
So in insolvency that is deemed bankruptcy the assets of the company are traditionally used to deal with as much of the liabilities of the company as they can in rank order of those liabilities. You know secured debt ranks ahead of unsecured etc.
This guy's claim on the assets of the company to get him out of that hell, for me, rank number 1, and alone. Next comes the wages due all employees not deprived of their liberty. And that's the usual way it is done too.
Then if a company has behaved abysmally by choosing to dump their employee in hell then the law needs to be involved on those making that decision. Absolutely. There needs to be consequences for making that /choice/. As was clearly made in this instance assuming the accuracy of the report.
If the company did well instead of go bankrupt who is cashing the biggest check? That is who is responsible. Work your way down that list until you find someone, everyone you can't find is a fugitive and has their assets seized.
This situation was created by the country essentially leaving a 4k tonne vessel derelict off the coast of Eygpt after failing to pay to fuel its ride home so there isn't going to be an easy answer here. It might be that the company had some act-of-god like circumstance happen (like an employee fraudulently embezzling funds and tampering with a fuel gauge to make it look like the ship had far more fuel than it did though... that's insanely unlikely given how shifty everyone is acting).
Egypt might be in a position where they've got a rusting leaking hunk of trash off their coast that they can't remove without causing an international incident and, forcing some member of the company to remain with the wreck might just be intended to force the company to actually call in salvagers to resolve the situation (which would likely be a large asset loss for the company).
I really don't think Egypt is likely the worst actor in this situation but it was cruel what they put this man through. Ideally the administrator trying to untangle this POS would realize this employee has essentially no power to resolve the situation and release them home - but his options to escape were likely pretty few.
If you're a passing ship the last thing you want to do is piss off Egypt since the country is pretty corrupt and controls the Suez Canal (which you plan on sailing through if your ship is anywhere in the neighborhood) - getting on their bad side is likely a one-way ticket to random inspections and tariffs or an outright ban and the only land close enough for the man to flee to was Egypt itself - so he'd need to sneakily emigrate... he's heading back to Syria so that means he'd need to cross the Egyptian-Israeli border under the radar and potentially without a passport - and probably with very little cash.
I really feel for this dude when he says he was struggling with depression because his situation was utterly screwed - the universe really wasn't on his side.... buuuut, I think the company owning the ship comes out the worst. The article doesn't have the details but something seriously slimy was going on there.
Removing a ship could cause an international incident, but forcing a person to stay alone on a ship without proper living conditions for years wouldn't? Imagine if the guy wasn't Syrian, but was an American instead. This would've either been resolved quickly or there would've been an international incident that would've put the removal of a ship to shame.
There's also a good chance they could've declared the ship lost at sea and either scuttled it or offered it for a dollar (or other token currency amount) to salvage companies.
Either way it sounds like the Captain probably knew what was going on. When the Captain learned that the parent company had ran out of money, he probably was aware of these cases of seafarer abandonment and decided he didn't want to be one of them. So he left the ship, leaving the responsibility on Mohammed.
Mohammed claimed he didn't really know the meaning of this responsibility until everyone else started disembarking. It sounds like by then the captain had been gone, for at least 4 months, and potentially longer.
The Captain sacrificed Mohammed here. Either way, someone was going to be abandoned on that vessel. I think the Captain saw the writing on the wall and abandoned quickly, shifting responsibility onto someone else.
There are lots of people at fault here. Egyptian authorities, Tyson Shipping and Marine Company (which seems to have continued operating despite all this), and the Captain. Unfortunately Mohammed is one of the innocent ones caught in the middle. He shouldn't have signed the paper as the shipping company is quick to point out. But that doesn't resolve the real issue. It would have just meant the Captain or someone else would have been forced into this situation.
It would be interesting if this did happen and the court found him guilty of dereliction of duty for not conjuring replacement parts out of thin air. Would he be sent to a land prison or back to the prison of the ship?
100% blame on Egypt here for a stupid rule ignoring consequences.
Somebody needs to do it and the crew members are the simplest people to task it to.
The ship had no fuel, it went adrift and ran aground...
Say what?