Prognosis
Over 200,000 Seafarers Fear There’s No Plan to Disembark Them
- Workers stranded at sea amid border, port restrictions
- Shippers risk halted operations if crew elect to stop working
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Like thousands of other seafarers, Karika Neethling wanted to get home as the coronavirus pandemic convulsed the cruise industry in March. Her anxiety grew more desperate when she learned she was pregnant.
But for nearly three months, the 27-year-old South African was caught in a web of border restrictions and corporate bureaucracy, shuttled on ships between ports in the Bahamas and Italy as her employer, MSC Cruises SA, worked to get its crews home.