But a Foreign Affairs official said they have been unable to make direct contact with officials in Port Moresby to discuss repatriation of the PNG islanders despite numbers phone calls and emails.
On Friday, all but one of the emaciated survivors had had their intravenous fluids removed and were eating solid food. A nurse attending to the men said four have been eating hospital food and that aside from suffering from fevers they are slowly recovering and will stay in hospital until they can regain their strength and some of the weight lost during an ordeal when they lived off coconuts, coconut husks and the dried bark from driftwood in the western Pacific.
A group of seven men was rescued November 15 near Nauru by the U.S. fishing vessel Ocean Encounter, but two died on the ship before it could reach Majuro Tuesday night.
Nurses and doctors at Majuro Hospital said they are keeping a close eye on 19-year-old Gerard Bugngim, as his condition has only marginally improved since he was carried off the US fishing vessel on a stretcher last Tuesday night. Bugngim and 17-year-old Metatus Tikell remain bed ridden.
The men spoke to their families in the New Ireland area of PNG on Thursday night through arrangements made specially by the government’s National Telecommunications Authority. Survivor Nick Sales said this lifted their spirits immensely. A phone was set up in the hospital room, which the men are sharing and the 29-year-old Sales said their families were thrilled to hear from them and “they want us to bring back the remains (of the two men who died).”
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Asia-Pacific desk officer Keyoka Kabua said Majuro telecom officials contacted an Emergency Response Office in PNG and the office contacted the families on remote Lihir Island to arrange the call.
