Passengers on mercy mission ship stranded

Published Date:4-july-2009 - (NIE)

G Saravanan

Chennai, July 3: TWO passengers on the Mercy Mission ship MV Captain Ali, ex-SLMM monitor Kristjan Guðmundsson of Iceland and Uthayanan Thavarajasingam, a Tamil volunteer from United Kingdom, have sought chief minister M Karunanidhi’s intervention as Indian immigration officials blocked their departure to their home countries through Chennai.

According to sources, the ship’s local coordinator had arranged air tickets for their departure via Chennai’s international airport twice in the last 24 hours, but immigration officials blocked the move by declining to issue temporary visas to facilitate their visit to the airport.

Agni Subramaniam, local coordinator for the ship, said, “Immediately after docking in the Chennai Port by Thursday evening, we tried to get the consent of the immigration officials about the passengers’ return journey since they were desperate to get back to their countries.”

“They assured us with temporary visas for both since they were just passengers in the Mercy Mission ship, but by Friday evening, they backtracked and said that they have to be with the ship till unloading of relief materials gets over,” he added.

Speaking to Express from the ship, Uthayanan said, “I appeal to Chief Minister Karunanidhi to intervene on behalf of us, since we have travelled for almost two months in rough sea conditions and now want to get back home.” Kristjan too needs to travel immediately as his uncle died on June 23 from a long illness in Iceland.

Captain Ali has been sold to a Kolkatabased businessman and she will start for Kolkata in the next few days. However, the fate of Kristjan and Uthayan is still unclear since they cannot travel along with the remaining crew up to Kolkata as they were just passengers. Immigration officials were not available for comment.