A dozen Turkish sailors who spent the last five months in a ship moored in Sorel are finally going home.

The 12 nautical repairmen arrived in April to help repair the Sun Phoenix but soon fell into limbo when their employer stopped paying them.

The workers told CTV Montreal one month ago that they were choosing to stay until they were paid but four weeks later have still not been compensated for their work. With winter looming, they have decided to call it quits.

Sorel Mayor Serge Peloquin led an effort that raised $10,000 for the sailors while AirTransat is providing the flights to Istanbul that left from Trudeau Airport Sunday afternoon.

The municipality also provided electricity and other amenities that ended up costing an estimated $60,000, according to Peloquin.

Captain Semih Ozkan said that his shipmates are grateful for the help, adding that their families back home in Turkey have suffered hardship without their financial support.

“This is like a prison for us, we can go out and go shopping but we’re stuck here in that we have no salaries and our family is in a bad situation,” he said.

Their mission, he notes, was almost fully accomplished.

“We almost completely repaired the ship but we’re waiting for some spare parts. They didn’t come."

The Phoenix Sun bulk carrier is 186 metres long and was built in 1987. The ship has been docked in Sorel-Tracy since 2012.

The ship is registered in Panama and managed by a Hamilton, Ontario company called Menpas Shipping and Trading Inc.

The Canadian Coast guard seized the ship, in hopes of that the company would pay the sailor’s wages and repatriation back home.

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