Today, 14 Ukrainian sailors of the tanker Ruta, detained in April 2017 on suspicion of smuggling, went on hunger strike in a Libyan prison.

According to UNIAN, this was announced today at a briefing in Odessa by relatives of sailors and representatives of the charity organization "Assol Sailors Fund".

According to Svitlana Fabrikant, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Assol, believing that Ukraine as a state does not perform the functions of protecting its citizens, the crew of the Ruta ship went on a hunger strike on May 14. An amnesty has been announced in Libya over the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, to avoid mass coronavirus infections, local authorities are reducing the number of people held in prisons, where only particularly dangerous criminals, including terrorists, etc., are left.

The crew of the ship "Ruta" (flag of Ukraine) - 14 people, residents of Odessa, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions.

According to the boatswain's wife Tatiana Alferova, the sailors have been in one of the prisons in Tripoli, the capital of Libya, for more than 3 years. In another Tripoli prison, four other Ukrainian sailors are members of the crew of the tanker Captain Khayyam.

Source: Dilo