Vietnamese ship captain recalls rescue of 22 ‘hungry, quivering’ Filipino fishermen
Credit to Author: DEMPSEY REYES| Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2019 00:07:30 +0000
THE captain of the Vietnamese ship that rescued 22 Filipino fishermen after their boat was rammed by a Chinese vessel recalled how the victims were “hungry and quivering” when he and his crew found them drifting in the area of the South China Sea.
In a report on the Saigon Times quoting local news website Vnexpress, Captain Nguyen Thanh Tam said that about 1 a.m. on June 10, he and his crew woke up to voices of foreigners.
“Turning on the flashlight, the captain discovered that two small boats without lights were on the side of his vessel. There were two foreign men using hand signals as if they were asking for urgent help,” the Saigon Times said in its report.
It said that Tam was worried that the Filipinos may be pirates but when he saw two fishermen, “soaking wet and shivering,” he and his men “thought they might have had an accident at sea.”
The two Filipino fishermen then continued to use hand signals in requesting help and pointed towards Recto Bank ( also known as Reed Bank), Tam was quoted as saying.
Tam, whose boat was about five nautical miles away, immediately set sail but poor visibility delayed the trip by an hour.
As Tam’s ship neared Recto Bank, the Saigon Times said the Vietnamese crew saw the 20 remaining fishermen wearing life jackets and holding on to plastic barrels and pieces of wood from the wrecked F/B Gem-Ver, the Filipino fishing boat.
“The victims were found to be hungry and quivering. They were picked up by the 10 Tien Giang fishermen, and given rice, instant noodles and warm materials,” the report said.
The 22 fishermen then told Tam’s team that their ship was hit and abandoned by a Chinese vessel at about 8:30 p.m. on June 9.
At about 5 a.m. on June 10, the Tien Giang returned to the original site to pull up the net and the fishermen borrowed a radio handset to contact a Filipino fishing vessel for help.
They were picked up at about 2 p.m. on the same day.
Tam’s fishing vessel is registered to Tien Giang Province and the ship is owned by 54-year-old Ngo Van Theng, a resident of Tien Giang’s Go Cong town.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana had called the incident a ” hit and run.”
President Rodrigo Duterte had downplayed the incident as a “little maritime accident.”
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