Chittagong/Brussels,
4 April 2016 – In the morning of 28 March, shipbreaking worker Sumon was killed
on a private road inside Kabir Steel yard located North of Bangladesh’s major
port city, Chittagong. His brother, who works at the yard as well, was seriously
injured in the same accident. According to local sources, Sumon was run over by
a truck transporting steel plates from the yard. When a local government
representative reached the yard to claim the legal compensation owed to the
victim’s family, the yard management refused to take responsibility for the
accident with the argument that the truck was owned and operated by another
company.
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(Pictured:
Chittagong Medical College Hospital. Copyrights: NGO Shipbreaking Platform,
2014)
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At around 11 a.m.,
locals together with family members gathered outside the yard in protest and
blocked traffic on the highway. They claimed, according to the English daily
newspaper The Daily Star that the company was withholding Sumon’s body inside
the yard. The private security personnel employed by the shipbreaking yard
started shooting at the group. According to Bangladeshi newspapers, one of
Kabir Steel’s guards injured seven people.
“This course of
action represents unnecessary use of violence against unarmed protestors,” says
Patrizia Heidegger, Executive Director of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, “and
it shows the climate of violence surrounding the shipbreaking yards. Locals and
workers protesting the conditions in the yards obviously put their lives in
danger in an atmosphere in which shipbreaking yards feel entitled to shoot at
people.”
Tariqul Islam of
the local police station said that the accused security guards were detained.
Moreover, the Financial Express Bangladesh reported that the police seized a
gun and several rounds of bullets at the yard.
“The incident shows
how non-transparent this industry is. The NGO Shipbreaking Platform and its
local members now expect that the police investigates this case properly. We
demand rightful punishment of those responsible for the blood shed”, says
Rizwana Hasan, Chief Executive of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers
Association.
Muhammed Ali
Shahin, the Platform’s Bangladesh coordinator, adds: “We expect that the family
of the dead worker receives its due compensation as fast as possible instead of
being caught up in an argument between two companies pushing away
responsibility”. So far, the compensation claim has not been settled.
Kabir Steel’s
shipbreaking yard is part of the large industrial conglomerate of Kabir Group
of Industries. The NGO Shipbreaking Platform has documented several severe and
fatal accidents in the yard over the last years. In 2014 alone, when the yard
had the highest recorded number of accidents amongst all Bangladeshi shipbreakers,
at least 2 workers were killed and six more severely injured at Kabir Steel’s
shipbreaking yard and re-rolling mill in four different accidents. This
included the case of three workers who suffered severe burn wounds all over
their bodies after an explosion on a Norwegian-owned oil tanker used by Teekay
Corporation. In another accident in the same yard, on 30 March 2016, cutter
helper Md. Abdus Salam fell down from a beached vessel due to the lack of
safety measures at work. As a result, he suffered serious injuries including
several fractures in his arms and legs.
“The sad accidents
record is proof of the fact that Kabir Steel does not ensure safer working
conditions, does not comply with proper safety procedures, uses untrained
workers, lacks proper infrastructure to guarantee occupational health and
safety and does not organise the legally binding Safety Committee at yard
level”, criticises Repon Chowdhury, Executive Director of the Platform member
Bangladesh Occupational Safety, Health and Environment Foundation.
The Platform
welcomes that IndustriAll Global Union has sent a letter to the Prime Minister
of Bangladesh. It joins the trade union’s call for proper investigation and for
the rightful punishment of both negligent yard owners and of security guards
for the bodily assault of protestors.
Sumon and the other
workers at Kabir Steel have been hired to dismantle the Greek-owned and
Greek-flagged bulk carrier Alpha Friendship. The Athens-based owner Alpha
Tankers obviously does not take care of responsible ship recycling. The
Platform will take up this case to illustrate the necessity for the EU and its
Member States to better regulate ship owners’ sub-standard shipbreaking
practices.
Source: NGO
Shipbreaking Platform. 04 April 2016
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