The [crew of the Azraqmoiah, an Elite Way Marine Services-owned vessel] have been stranded, six nautical miles off Ajman port, with no supplies, no wages, no fuel and scant means of communication, for 18 months... [living on] rice and dahl provided by charities and the Indian consulate... they are owed $260,600 (£199,300) in wages, they say, as well as their airfare home... [Captain Ayyappan Swaminathan] is now taking legal action against the ship owner... In the UAE, his is one of several abandoned ships owned by the same company, with 36 crew on board, all in the same desperate situation. Elite Way Marine Services says the company had “financial problems” but planned to pay the seafarers soon...

The FTA [UAE's Federal Transport Authority] has now taken legal action against Elite Way Marine Services, to arrest Swaminathan’s vessel, which is UAE-flagged. It has already arrested one of the company’s other vessels in the Gulf. Once the ship has been arrested, the seafarers can be repatriated by the Indian consulate...

Elite Way has now promised to sell two ships, a tug and a supply vessel, to pay the wages it owes the seafarers. When asked by the Guardian... Captain Ibrahim Gafar, Elite Way’s operations manager, would only say his company ran into financial difficulties. He says he has so far refused to sell any of his vessels to release money to pay their wages because he would not get a good price, but now has a buyer for one while another is being sold for scrap. He will pay the seafarers after he gets the cash from the sales, which he expects to happen by the end of next week.