It started to dawn on Anatolii Popov when the ship he was working on was stationary in the port of Rotterdam for weeks. A month earlier, the 34-year-old Ukrainian had boarded the Finnish freighter the ZES Pilot. They had visited some ports in the Baltic Sea and unloaded steel in Stralsund in northeastern Germany. From there they sailed to Rotterdam without any cargo. Why didn’t they take any cargo with them, Popov thought. And why had they been waiting on the quay in the Waalhaven for more than three weeks now? That’s not a cheap berth, is it?
What worried the sailor even more: he had not been paid for weeks. His family in Odessa lives on his income of $2,300 a month, he needed that money. Popov received no answers from his captain. “He said we had to wait and see that everything would turn out fine.” But in the meantime the fuel ran out and there was hardly any food left.
the Finnish-Cameroonian mechanic René Mbafut (37) a few weeks later. “I’m wasting my time here.” But he doesn’t dare go home. He is now owed about $10,000 in salary and is afraid that he will be left without that money as soon as he leaves the ship. A justified fear, according to union lawyers – according to them there are few options to force an employer to pay if the crew leaves the ship. So Mbafut waits.
The crew of the ZES Pilot is one of a growing group of seafarers who are left behind on ships, often with months of salary still owed. Worldwide, more than three thousand seafarers were left to fend for themselves without pay in 2024, sometimes on the high seas, according to figures of the international transport union ITF. According to the union this year all records were broken – by mid-2025, more than 2,600 crew members had already been left behind.
We are trapped. I’m wasting my time here
Ship owners withdraw their hands from ships for various reasons: because they have been seized, because the ship is so old that it is cheaper to leave it as scrap, or because it has been put on a sanctions list. The crew is the victim: suddenly they are abandoned, thousands of kilometers from home. Without pay, sometimes without food, and often without money for a ticket back home.
Captain leaves
On October 2, when the ZES Pilot has been at the quay at the Steinweg transhipment company for almost a month, the captain suddenly leaves the ship. He takes the ship’s telephone and two laptops with him. The rest of the crew, in addition to Popov and Mbafut, a 44-year-old Lithuanian and a 28-year-old Estonian, are left adrift. They don’t speak Dutch, have no contacts here, and can’t go anywhere without a captain. What should they do?
Three days later a tugboat comes to the ship. “We are going to tow you away,” says the helmsman. “Owner’s order.” The crew has no choice but to let themselves be carried away, down the Nieuwe Maas, onto the Oude Maas at Vondelingenplaat, and from there to the Dordtsche Kil.
The ship ZES Pilot.
Photo Hedayatullah Amid/NRC
And here they are now, on a 36-year-old, rusty ship on an industrial estate near ‘s-Gravendeel, out of sight of local residents, behind two large metal fences at the furthest end of the quay, between abandoned trailers, stacks of pallets, weathered ship ropes and some dilapidated boats. The village is a forty minute walk away.
Crew sick
The ZES Pilot is not a typical case: usually the victims are not Europeans, but come from India or Syria. And they are usually not stranded in Europe, but in Dubai or other ports in the Emirates.
Crew are particularly at risk on the shadow fleet – a group of an estimated nearly a thousand old, poorly insured ships that transport sanctioned oil from Russia, Iran or Venezuela. The number of shadow ships increased over the past year 45 percent mainly as a result of the sanctions against Russia.
And because of this the number of victims also increased. Out research Shipping analyst site Lloyd’s List shows that in half of the cases where crew were left behind, Russian, Venezuelan or Iranian cargo was transported. Sailors are at greater risk as that trade is tackled with stricter sanctions.
Andrej Sidoruk from Lithuania on the ZES Pilot.
Photo Hedayatullah Amid/NRC
For example, in January this year, 21 Georgians and four Ukrainians were stranded in the Caribbean Sea. Their ship, the MS Meleniawas one month before placed on the US sanctions list for oil trade with Iran. At the end of January, the fuel had run out, the air conditioning and lighting had failed, and the ship had no choice but to drop anchor off the coast of Aruba, according to a report. database of the International Labor Organization. More than a month later, there was no food left on board and several crew members had become ill. The Dutch coast guard brought food and medicine and sent two doctors to the ship. The crew was recently repatriated.
This spring, 19 Russians and three Georgians were abandoned off the coast of Panama. The ship they sailed on, the Sky Riderhad been transporting Russian oil and was placed on the European sanctions list placed. They did not receive their salaries, according to the ship owner, because bank accounts were frozen due to the sanctions.
Finnish marina
This is the scenario that René Mbafut tells on board the rusty ZES Pilot in ‘s-Gravendeel. Shipmen are in a vulnerable position. They work under difficult conditions, on temporary contracts, and are often away from home for months. In the three years he has worked in maritime shipping, he has heard too many stories about crew members stranded in a port on the other side of the world.
That was why Mbafut had done his research before taking the job on the ZES Pilot. He had signed a contract with Nordcrewing, a large and well-known maritime employment agency. He had looked up the owners of the ship and checked which flag it sailed under. And he was “super confident” that this ship could be trusted.
It flies the Finnish flag, a country with a large maritime trade and a good reputation. Much more reliable than, for example, a Panamanian or Palauan flag, which are mainly used to avoid regulations. And the ship is owned by a Finnish company – that also inspired more confidence than the average Panamanian or Dubai letterbox company that is common in the shipping industry.
Anatolii Popov, René Mbafut and Andrej Sidoruk
Hedayatullah Amid/NRC
But Mbafut became suspicious when he arrived at the Pargas marina in the Finnish archipelago in August this year after a journey by train, bus and taxi. What was the cargo ship doing there among the luxury yachts and sailing ships? He had been told that he would be working on the Salla, but he didn’t see that ship anywhere. There was only an old ship with the name ZES Pilot in capitals on the bow.
“I asked the taxi driver to wait a moment, I thought I had made a mistake,” says Mbafut. But there was only one freighter in the harbor, this had to be it. The captain reassured Mbafut: you are fine, the ship changed its name a few weeks ago.
The captain had another surprise: an error had been made with Mbafut’s contract. Whether he wanted to sign again. Mbafut checked the salary, the length of the contract, and recognized the Nordcrewing logo in the top left corner, the employment agency he trusted. That’s all right, he thought. He signed.
But he had overlooked the fact that he did not sign this contract with Nordcrewing at all. Only weeks later did Mbafut discover that he and his fellow crew members had committed themselves to Valmex Oy, a Finnish company registered in a shed behind a high fence on a remote Danish industrial estate.
Only when he received his salary did he see that it did not come from Nordcrewing, but from a Finn he did not know. He leaves the name on NRC see in his banking app. It turns out to be one of the owners of Valmex.
The amount Mbafut received was far too low. And since that one time, he hasn’t received a salary at all. Mbafut is now owed more than 10,000 dollars for his work on the ZES Pilot, and the ship has been stationary in Dutch ports for a month and a half.
Ship’s radio broken
The crew has ended up in a shadow play with , the company they do not know but to which they are under contract. In almost every email, Valmex gives new reasons why it does not pay wages, according to emails that NRC was able to view. Valmex is not responsible, the crew must be with the owner of the ship or with the employment agency. At least not at Valmex.
When the crew puts more pressure with the help of the Dutch branch of the international transport union ITF, new accusations arise: the crew is said to have been drinking, refused to work, and did not follow instructions. And they still have to be patient.
There is a power game going on in the background that the crew has little insight into. When the ship came ashore in the Netherlands in September, a bailiff was ready to seize the ship for half a million dollars on behalf of a Cypriot company.
“The captain threatened to sail away twice, despite the seizure,” says bailiff Rob van Veenendaal. “I looked him in the eye and warned him that this is punishable. I have never experienced this in my twenty years as a bailiff.”
The lawyer for RB Maritime Oy, the owner of the ship, said it disputes the claims. The company says it is not aware that an attempt was made to have the ship sail away. RB Maritime has nothing to do with the overdue wages, says the lawyer.
The ship’s insurance has now been canceled, the quality marks have been withdrawn, and the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate has detained the ship because safety on board is substandard and the ship’s radio does not work.
According to international treaties seafarers are protected against non-payment: if the employer or ship owner refuses to pay, the insurer has to come up with money. And if all that doesn’t work, the flag state must arrange for it to happen. But no one cares, not even the Finnish authorities.
The director of Valmex tells NRC by telephone that he does not want to respond to questions for “legal reasons”. He does say that it is “in any case not a big problem”, without substantiating this. Finnish authorities say they are investigating the matter and that it is up to the Finnish union to secure salaries on behalf of the crew. The union disputes that.
Fitness on deck
Anatolii Popov has made a small altar on the table in his cabin with four icons from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Every evening he prays to the saints. “Faith says that everything will be fine if you do what is right.” But what is the good in this case? Popov has no answer.
The altar of Anatolii Popov.
Hedayatullah Amid/NRC
He responds to vacancies, exercises on deck every day: lifting weights, jumping rope, squats. But otherwise his life has come to a standstill: “I don’t learn anything, I’m bored.”
Popov was always proud that he has not had to accept help from anyone since the invasion of Ukraine. “We did not apply for benefits or receive refugee aid. I went to work to support my family in Odessa.” But now that doesn’t work anymore. Last week the crew went shopping. The food was gone.
Crew in the wheelhouse of the ZES Pilot
Photo Hedayatullah Amid/NRC
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