Bangladesh shipbreaker’s widow pursues test case on worker safety

Woman whose husband died dismantling oil tanker in local shipyard given green light to pursue a claim for compensation.

A Bangladeshi woman whose husband died dismantling an oil tanker in a local shipyard has been given the green light this week to keep pursuing a claim for compensation from a British company linked to the vessel in what is being called a test case for the shipbreaking industry. Britain’s Court of Appeal threw out a request by London-based shipbroker Maran (UK) Ltd for the negligence case to be dismissed, the second appeal the company has lost. Hamida Begum’s husband, Khalil Mollah, 32, fell to his death in 2018 while breaking up the tanker Ekta in the Bangladesh port of Chattogram, home to one of the world’s largest shipbreaking yards, where vessels are dismantled for scrap metal.