Ship crews suffer in Asian crisis

Ship crews suffer in Asian crisis

SINGAPORE (AP): Asia's economic crisis has left a growing number of ships' crews stranded in ports without food or other essential supplies, forcing some sailors to sell ship parts for scrap in order to survive, a news report in Singapore said on Wednesday.

The owner of the Singapore-registered vessel Wan Ling, which was stuck in Vietnam, stopped providing the ship's 24 crew members with food and other necessities in November, The Shipping Times newspaper said.

Wan Ling crewmen, mostly Indonesian, Philippines, Myanmar and Bangladeshi citizens, sold parts of the ship to buy basic necessities, but have since received some provisions from the London-based International Transport Workers Federation.

The Wan Ling is "not an isolated case, it's a result of the economic crisis", Simon Des Baux, federation regional assistant, was quoted as telling the newspaper.