A fishing vessel carrying 39 crew members capsized in the middle of the Indian Ocean on Tuesday, prompting a search and rescue mission.
The incident, which occurred on May 16 at around 3 am, involved a crew of 17 Chinese, 17 Indonesian, and five Filipino nationals on the Chinese vessel.
Ships and aircraft from several countries, including China, Indonesia, Australia, and the Philippines, searched for survivors on Wednesday.
Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered the agriculture and transportation ministries and Chinese diplomats abroad to help with the rescue operation. President Xi emphasized that the rescue mission must make “all-out efforts.” The Australian Maritime Safety Authority received a distress beacon signal from the fishing vessel on Tuesday and reported that the area’s weather conditions were “extreme.”
Despite the extensive search efforts, no survivors or life rafts were found as of Wednesday. The search area covers a vast region located almost in the center of the Indian Ocean.
The search operation involved both merchant and fishing vessels in the area. The capsized hull was detected by a transmitter located over 1,000 kilometers south of Sri Lanka, and the nearest port appears to be the Maldives, approximately 500 kilometers north of the search area.
The incident is not the first time China has faced security concerns with its fishing vessels. A Norway-based watchdog group reported in 2021 that Chinese squid fishing ships used wide nets to illegally catch already overfished tuna in the Indian Ocean.
Additionally, Chinese fishing boats engaging in illegal activities have gained notoriety for sailing “dark” by deactivating their mandatory tracking devices, transmitting signals irregularly, or transmitting false information.
This has led to dangerous confrontations with other countries, such as the 2022 incident where the US Coast Guard inspected Chinese vessels near Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands for signs of illegal, unreported, or unregulated fishing.
