MC Ruby
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The MC Ruby was a general cargo ship built in 1979 as Bamenda Palm . The ship became known as the MC Ruby in the 1990s after eight African sneaks were killed on board by crew members .
ship
The ship was built under construction number 1294 at the Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard in Ulsan , South Korea . The launching of the ship took place on February 7, 1979. The ship arrived in 1979 as Bamenda Palm under the flag of the United Kingdom with homeport London for Palm Line going.
Technical specifications
The ship had four holds that were closed by seven folding hatch covers. Between the cargo holds there was a mast with loading booms with which the cargo hold in front of and behind the mast could be operated. Four of the booms could each lift 35 t, two could lift 60 t each. The deck superstructures were at the stern of the ship.
The propulsion of the ship consisted of a of Kawasaki license-built MAN - six-cylinder - diesel engine of the type K6Z70 / 120E.
incident
In autumn 1992 the ship was loaded with cocoa in sacks as MC Ruby flying the flag of the Bahamas in Takoradi in Ghana . There were 23 Ukrainian seamen on board . The ship left Takoradi at the end of October for Europe. The first port of call in Europe was Le Havre .
During the voyage, nine sneakers were found on board, eight Ghanaians and one Cameroonian , who had hidden in the hold. They were noticed five days after leaving Takoradi, after leaving footprints on deck in search of water . The sneakers were locked up in the forepeak after their discovery and received only three bottles of drinking water from one crew member during this time. On the morning of November 3, the sneakers were taken out of the forepeak in groups of two to three people and then killed. The bodies were thrown overboard. Kingsley Osufu and his brother Albert were the last to be taken from the forepeak. While Kingsley Osufu, who was employed as a dock worker in Takoradi , escaped, his brother was also thrown overboard. Osufu was able to hide on board until arriving in Le Havre.
After the ship arrived in Le Havre, Osufu was able to escape from the ship. During a comparison, he identified the six sailors who were involved in the murder of the sneakers.
At the end of 1995, the captain and the first mate were sentenced to life imprisonment for killing the sneakers in France . Three crew members received 20 years' imprisonment.
Others
The incident on board the MC Ruby was filmed in 1996 and shown under the title " Deadly Voyage - Flotsam of Death ".
literature
- L'Affaire MC RUBY: Anatomie d'un procès , Droit et Culture No. 36, Editions L'Harmattan, 1998 ISBN 2-7384-7115-3
- Jacques Py: L'affaire MC Ruby: un cas d'école pour une expertise de psychologie du témoignage oculaire ( PDF file , 180 kB)
Web links
- Photos from the ship , North East Maritime - Shipping from Berwick to Grimsby
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Bamenda Palm , Coasters & Other Ships Revived. Retrieved November 19, 2014.
- ↑ a b 7725843 Renata , Maritime-Connector.com. Retrieved November 19, 2014.
- ↑ a b c d Julian Nundi: Stowaways 'killed and thrown overboard' , The Independent , November 27, 1994. Retrieved November 19, 2014.
- ↑ a b c d African Star , Shipspotters.nl. Retrieved November 19, 2014.
- ^ Raymond Whitaker: Life terms for stowaway massacre , The Independent, December 11, 1995. Retrieved November 19, 2014.