The government took the ultimate step to protect the welfare of hundreds of thousands of Filipino seafarers by banning them yesterday from ships that pass through the hotbed of hijacking — the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

The Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) on Wednesday said the prohibition applies to passenger and cruise ships.

The Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden were added to the list of “high-risk areas” (HRAs) and “war-like zones” (WLZs) by the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) and International Bargaining Forum (IBF).

The DMW has listed the following guidelines to ensure the safety of seafarers:

1. All Licensed Manning Agencies (LMAs) shall execute an affirmation letter that the ship to be boarded by their seafarers will not pass through the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea and indicate the itinerary of the vessel every time it documents the employment in the contract of the crew or before their deployment;

2. The seafarers to be assigned to passenger/cruise ships are likewise required to affix their signatures to indicate their concurrence to the affirmation letter, confirming knowledge that the vessel they will be boarding will not traverse the aforementioned warlike operation areas;

3. The affirmation letter duly executed by the LMAs and with the conforme of the seafarers shall be uploaded in the DMW Online Processing System for Sea-based together with the processed one-page covering standard employment contract; and

4. In case of manual processing, the affirmation letter shall form part of the required documents submitted to the Sea-based Accreditation Bureau.

EU force confident

The head of a European Union force protecting cargo ships from Houthi attacks in the Red Sea said the operation had met its goals, but freight traffic cannot increase without more warships.

“The distances that need to be covered are huge,” Rear Admiral Vasileios Gryparis told AFP at EU operation headquarters in the central Greek city of Larissa.

“So far, because shipping is down by over 50 percent, it is possible to escort any ship that requests protection.”

“We have accompanied 79 ships so far and none has sustained damage while under our escort.”

“This is a point of reference on which we can build to increase the number of ships under protection... with the means currently at our disposal, this is not possible,” he said.

Operation Aspides, named for the Greek word for shield, was launched by the European Union in February with the goal of protecting international shipping.

The Houthis began attacking ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea in November, a campaign they say is intended to signal solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.

They have vowed to target Israeli, British and American ships, as well as vessels heading to Israeli ports, disrupting traffic through the vital trade route off Yemen’s coast.

In March, the US Defense Department said Houthi rebels had attacked civilian and military ships sailing off Yemen at least 50 times since their assaults began.

The attacks have sent insurance costs spiraling for vessels transiting the Red Sea and prompted many shipping firms to take the far longer passage around the southern tip of Africa instead.

With AFP