Accident at sea: Missing fishermen yet to be identified

Fishermen decry the attitude of authorities; say no one cares that almost 12 people are still missing.

KARACHI: Authorities have neither managed to trace the owner of the boat nor the whereabouts of the fishermen who went missing after their boat overturned near Mubarak Village on Sunday. 

None of the 12 fishermen who were onboard were identified yet. Meanwhile, representatives of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) visited Machar Colony on Wednesday and Thursday to gather information about the missing fishermen, but no one came forward to identify them.



“There is a strong stench near the boat and I feel some bodies could still be in it,” a local fisherman, Sikandar Baloch, told The Express Tribune. He added, however, that the local fishermen could not recover the bodies even if they were near the boat. “We cannot untangle the bodies stuck in the fishing net. It requires machinery and other equipment,” he said.

For his part, the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) administrator Rauf Akhtar Farooqui claimed that he had not been informed about the missing fishermen. “I will ask the rescue workers if there are bodies near the boat,” he said. Farooqui clarified that the KMC had limited means within which it had to perform its functions. “We don’t have a proper system to deal with such major incidents.”

KMC rescue workers said that all agencies, including Pakistan Navy, Maritime Security Agency and Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum had been informed about the incident.

“Nothing has been done so far,” lamented one of the rescue workers. He said that only local fishermen seemed worried about the accident.

Local fishermen had alerted the KMC rescue workers of the plight of the fishermen, whom they had seen screaming for help as their boat had overturned. The fishermen had disappeared around half an hour later. They were feared to have drowned due to the high tide.

Pakistan Navy personnel had started the search operation later on Sunday evening but could not locate any of the fishermen. Two bodies were found on Tuesday and after legal formalities, were sent to the Edhi Morgue. It was learnt on Wednesday that the fishing boat was not registered by Karachi Fisheries Harbour Authority. No one has come forward to own the boat.

“We [fishermen] pay Rs5 billion in taxes per year but the government has always neglected us,” criticised Kamal Shah, the spokesperson of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, whose representatives searched Machhar Colony on Wednesday and Thursday in search of the missing fishermen’s families, but returned empty-handed.

Shah said that the government doesn’t announce any compensation for those fishermen who die in the deep sea while fishing. “The families are already poor and they are under huge financial burden when their elders die,” he added. He also stressed that all fishermen should be insured so that their children could at least have some funds to look after themselves.

He said that not a single agency had come forward to rescue people in the ordeal. “More than eight families have been ruined and no one cares,” said Shah.

Dr Nisar Morai, the chairman of the Fishermen’s Cooperative Society (FCS) was contacted for comments but he was not available.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 11^th, 2014.