SIMIC

Nearly two months have passed since the death of Italian captain, Angelo Capurro, and his family are still unable to arrange a funeral.

Capt Capurro, 61, died on April 13 in Indonesian waters having contracted Covid-19. Other crewmen from the 2009-built ship also came down with the virus while en route from Durban to Singapore.

In the intervening 10 weeks since Capurro passed away, a host of Asian ports have denied the ship access.

A force majeure has been declared and the Italian-flagged ship has been diverted to call Italy first in order to bury the captain after many Asian ports denied the ship entry. Its home port if Trieste.

The desperate situation onboard even saw Capurro's family launch a fundraiser on GoFundMe earlier to try and get his return to Italian soil.

"We will fight so that this tragedy that has struck us is not archived, ending up in the anonymity of the numbers of forgotten statistics," said Captain Capurro's daughter, Maria Eleonora.

Hapag-Lloyd, an Evergreen partner, said the Ital Libera is eventually expected to return to the rotation in the Far East service, however arrival and cargo delivery dates are still to be determined.