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Lying on the Bab al-Mandab strait, which is one of the world\u2019s busiest shipping chokepoints, Djibouti is a critical transit hub. More than 2,500 ships transit and call at its ports ?annually.<\/p>\n
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Continued complications with changing over ship crews due to coronavirus restrictions in some jurisdictions is still affecting supply chains despite an easing of lockdown in many parts of the world.<\/p>\n
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Some 400,000 seafarers are affected on land or on ships \u2013 with many at sea for longer than an 11-month limit laid out in a maritime labor convention.<\/p>\n
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Shipping industry officials say many are at breaking point, in a situation the United Nations has described as a \u201chumanitarian crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The first crew change operation took place in recent days in Djibouti and involved 19 seafarers who had been at sea on a merchant ship for over a year.<\/p>\n
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Aboubaker Omar Hadi, chairman of the government\u2019s Djibouti Ports and Free Zones Authority, said the crew transfer \u2013 which included sailors replacing them who had arrived by air \u2013 took less than two days. The country was ready for more changeovers, he said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe main asset is not the ships, it\u2019s the people manning the ships,\u201d Hadi told Reuters this week.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAny ship going through the strait of Bab al-Mandab we are prepared to welcome if they have a need for a crew change.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Neighboring countries include Yemen and Somalia, which have been battered by conflict. Hadi said its jurisdiction provided the \u201csafety and security required\u201d for merchant ships.<\/p>\n
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Crews onboard merchant ships vary and include Filipino, Indian and eastern European nationals.<\/p>\n
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Djibouti also is home to Chinese and U.S. naval bases. Its strategic position on the Gulf of Aden means it overlooks the world\u2019s critical waterways for commodities. (Editing by Angus MacSwan)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n gCaptain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lying on the Bab al-Mandab strait, which is one of the world\u2019s busiest shipping chokepoints, Djibouti is a critical transit hub. More than 2,500 ships transit and call at its ports ?annually. Continued complications with changing over ship crews due to coronavirus restrictions in some jurisdictions is still affecting supply chains despite an easing of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1949,1192,113,1697,3450,540],"class_list":["post-12931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-world","tag-change","tag-crew","tag-djibouti","tag-efforts","tag-ramps","tag-seafarers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/12932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}