Four Indian sailors who had been stranded for ten months on an abandoned container ship off Turkey’s coast have finally been rescued, as confirmed by an inspector to AFP on Monday. The sailors were trapped on the Mongolia-flagged AZRA C, which has been docked in the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul since August 2025. The ship’s owners were arrested in January during a significant international drug operation, leaving the vessel’s fate and the crew’s situation uncertain.
Selahattin Polat, the Turkey representative for the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), stated that the crew’s ordeal has ended. Last week, the sailors expressed their distress through an intermediary, highlighting the dire conditions they faced. The ITF, along with the Marine Employees’ Solidarity Association (DAD-DER), had been supplying the crew with essential provisions, including fresh drinking water.
Under international maritime regulations, a ship is required to maintain an adequate crew for emergency situations, whether at port or anchored. However, Polat noted that no replacements had arrived, leaving the ship unmanned. Legal actions concerning the abandoned vessel are currently in progress, shedding light on the increasing issue of ship abandonments, which the ITF has termed a “systemic” problem in the maritime sector. In 2025, there were 6,233 seafarers affected by abandonment across 410 ships, with Turkey recording the highest number of cases.
