HYDERABAD: Sankara Rao Jarjana (24), who has been fighting a lonely battle after he was stranded in Nigeria for almost one year, will finally get some help from the high commission of India in Abuja, Nigeria.

Following the publication of the Vizianagaram sailor’s plight in Nigeria in TOI (on March 4), Captain Sanjay Prashar of Forum for Integrated National Security (Fins) Maritime Security and Interest Group took up the matter with the high commission. “The seafarer is struggling for legal help and he has been treated unfairly,” he said.

In response, the high commission said in a tweet on Wednesday: “Mission has been in touch with the authorities concerned and is following it up. We will provide the necessary consular assistance in the case of Rao.”

Sankara Rao spent six months in jail after his ship ‘MT Apecus’ entered the Nigerian waters illegally. Though he got bail, his case is coming up for a hearing on March 24. “I made a call to the high commission several times but they refused to help me, saying the ship was at fault for illegally entering the territorial waters of Nigeria. When I kept trying for the high commission authorities, they even blocked my phone number,” Sankara Rao told TOI on phone from Bonny Island in Nigeria where the vessel is anchored.

Capt Prashar, who speaks out against criminalisation of seafarers for no fault of theirs, filed an RTI on September 7, 2019, and the Indian high commission informed him that there were two Indian sailors languishing in Nigerian prisons. One was Capt Sailesh Kumar , who was arrested on board MT Akshay in November 2012 on oil bunkering charges and sentenced to 15 years in jail.

Another name mentioned was that of Shankara Rao . “Details not known as the matter is under investigation,” the high commission in Abuja had said about Rao.

A representative of International Seafarers and Welfare Network (ISWAN), Chirag Bahri also got in touch with Sankara Rao and took details pertaining to his case.

MT Apecus on which Rao was sailing was attacked by Somalian pirates on April 19 last year and five Indian sailors were kidnapped. Rao, who saw the pirates, hid in the engine room and escaped from being taken captive by the pirates. However, Rao’s problems multiplied as he was arrested along with other sailors of Ghana and Nigeria as the ship had entered the Nigerian territorial waters illegally.

The five Indian sailors were released in June by the pirates.

