A Filipina seafarer is now missing after she allegedly fell off a cargo ship in Germany over the weekend.
The Pinay seafarer was identified as 24-year-old Jerlyn Isah Quisumbing. She was working at Danish-flagged freighter Santa Clara.
“We are still in positive [spirit] that our child is still alive,” said Richard Quisumbing, Jerlyn’s father.
“But we are also in a hurry that they will find her. Maybe she’s in a hospital somewhere,” Richard told Manila Bulletin in an interview Friday, February 12.
According to The Maritime Folks, the ship is “currently docked at Bremerhaven, where maritime police have been assigned to investigate the incident” according to an interview by Bremen police spokesman Bastian Demann.
The missing 24-year-old had gone overboard on a container ship in the North Sea off Bremerhaven, about the height of Fedderwardersiel.
OS Jerlyn Isah Quisumbing is a graduate of the Philippine Merchant Marine School in Las Piñas.
According to the seafarer’s mother Rossana, they were told that Quisimbing fell off the ship during a storm as their vessel was approaching Bremerhaven port, a coastal city in northern Germany.
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Filipina seafarer who falls off cargo ship in Germany missing
“Di kona alam ang gagawin ko, kung paano ko matulungan ang aking anak. Kung kanikanino na ako lumalapit. Iyak na iyak na ako lagi hindi na mkakain at walang tulog sa kaiisip. Napakasakit ang nangyaring ito sa main,” said Rossana.
(I don’t know what to do or how I can help my child. I have been asking help from everybody. I am constantly crying, I can’t eat or sleep thinking of her. What happened to us is very painful.)
Filipina blogger and photographer Maria Josephine Renker, who is based in Germany was contacted by the plight of the Quisimbings.
Ranker’s report about the incident then caught the attention of Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro “Teddy Boy” Locsín Jr.
The family of Quisimbing confirmed that Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) chief Hans Leo Cacdac has called them as well as the Philippine Overseas Labor and Office (POLO) in Germany.