Banjul, Gambia (AP) – Skin along the river was in pain on a fishing boat. The raw and smooth burns covered most of his upper body.
His day began normally, moving to one of the foreign-owned vessels that engage in commercial fishing in waters off the coast of West Africa. It was he suffered from a year’s injury, which made him very difficult to recover.
Local fishermen got mad at illegal intrusions and what they called obstructors by foreign vessels Gambiaonce again confronted one of Egypt’s Abu Islam.
However, Lee was also a local sailor. Video of the attack, obtained solely by Associated Press, documents new issues in the fight for domination in West African waters. The Gambians are currently fighting the Gambians at sea, and are beyond their control by the power of the market and foreign appetites.
The problem comes from the attempted reform. To say and pay the locals more in commercial fishing, the Gambian government is currently requiring foreign ships to drive offshore to carry a certain percentage of Gambian crew.
These locals have become accidental targets of rage that they are well understood after trying to compete with a small wooden boat with a Chinese-owned foreign ship and its bare hands.
The video was shared by the Gambian Seafarers Association, filmed minutes after the arson attack. The AP reviewed more than 20 videos from a variety of sources showing the conflict since 2023. Lee said he was surprised he survived and was dissatisfied with the Gambian rival.
Other collisions in waters off the coast of Gambia have been fatal, with at least 11 local fishermen reportedly dead in the past 15 years.
“It’s like most of them, and when they go fishing, it’s as if they’re going to war,” said Abdu Sanyan, executive director of the Gambian Seafarers Association.
The fighting threatens to tear the fishing community apart, and makes a living for everyone while overfishing to supply seafood buyers around the world. There are concerns that fish populations off the coast of Gambia could collapse in the coming years. It is a business and environmental disaster in a small country with two major economic factors: tourism and seafood.
As for generations, the Gambian fishermen knew no other jobs. Now, financial pressure to compete with foreign-owned ships has made some give up. They want to sell boats for use in another growth industry: transfer Heading towards Europe through the dangerous Atlantic ocean.
Some of the fishermen become immigrants themselves, hoping for another kind of fortune at the sea. Lee, unable to support his family, is now considering it.
Two men per 20
Famara and Salif Ndure are brothers of Gunjur’s fishing community. They say they have lost more than half of their fishing nets to foreign trawlers.
“You see them cutting your net, but you can’t do anything because two men can’t compete with 20-30 men at the ocean,” Famara said. The brothers said they opposed the attack ship their fellow-borne.
They said foreign ships are becoming increasingly aggressive during the current government. President Adama BarrowIt took over after the expulsion of former dictator Yahya Jammeh in 2017. The Gambia reopened its water that year on foreign-owned ships.
Famara said that when foreign ships fish beyond approved zones, the fishing nets are often cut off at night. Local fishermen have exclusive fishing rights within nine nautical miles of the coast, but they claim that the trawlers will come as close as five. It is inevitable that it will cause a collision at sea.
“Where they want, they come and have an east feast, so we are suffering,” Famara said.
He and his brother once had 15 nets. They have been reduced to 3. A single netline costs $100, making exchanges almost impossible in countries with per capita income less than $1,000.
Government compensation for net loss requires reporting of violations by observers with the Ministry of Fisheries stationed on foreign ships.
The brothers feel helpless. The trollers are “destroying the nation,” they said. They believe the reason is the money the government has obtained from the licenses of foreign trollers. License fees vary, with some vessels worth $275 per tonne.
“They tell us what the trawlers pay, our little boats don’t pay that,” Famara said.
The Gambian government did not answer questions from the Associated Press.
Most foreign trollers are operating without proper documentation and using fraudulent gear, claimed Lamin Jassey, president of the Gunjur Conservationists and Ecotourism Association. Local groups are working on advocates for marine conservation and better fishing policies.
The violations are so blatant that foreign ships barely hide their presence when they violate local water at night, Omar Gay said they are the local cooperatives of non-government fishing groups.
“You even think this is the town for the sake of the light,” he said.
One of the brothers, Salif, went to the sea with a Gambian naval officer last year and reported a foreign trawler after a confrontation over the alleged invasion. No action was taken.
He eventually filmed what happened at sea and posted online hoping to have an official response one day.
Violation and almost punishment
One important case reaches the Gambian court over a fishing dispute, and another case is being prepared. One is an arson attack that includes Lee’s ship. The other is a clash between a foreign trawler identified as a Majrak 6 by a local fisherman last year and a local vessel that killed three local fishermen.
They are rare in countries where the pursuit of justice requires time and cash that many people don’t have.
Gay expressed his dissatisfaction with Majrak 6. He claimed he was too close to the coast and said he had not properly investigated the deaths with Gambian authorities.
“I don’t know why this is pending. No one is talking about it. And this is a criminal case, this is a crime against the state!” he said of the case. Authorities have not visited or offered compensation for the family of the deceased, he said.
Omar Abdullah Jan, managing director of the Majrak ship group from various countries of the owner, did not respond to the AP question. The owner of the Majilac 6 was not clear.
Maget Mbye and his wife, Fatou Jobe, lost their 22-year-old son in a conflict.
“This is extremely painful and we cannot pay him to his soul,” Mbye said. “They continue to work as if nothing happened… We want the government to help.”
The government is trying to patrol the ocean.
In March last year, prior to the fatal collision, an armed maritime blocking unit with the Gambian navy detained eight foreign trawlers, including fishing in protected seas, fishing without a valid license, false reporting of catches, and using fish to collect fish, including using fish. Almost everything was accused of fishing in an area reserved for local fishermen.
It was a rare development. The Gambia’s underresourced navy relies on international support from nonprofit organizations to see its water.
The Majilac 6 was one of the ships detained.
The boat quickly returned to the sea, and locals say they continued fishing in the Gambia waters.
Gays and others were angry to learn that Majrak 6 was accused of a fatal clash. He said such clashes have killed at least 11 local fishermen in the last decade and a half.
He also noted that last year’s case of arson attack on Egyptian-owned vessels was quickly resolved, noting the double standard of enforcement. “When it’s a craftsman fisherman, there’s no justice, but when this is an industrial fishing boat, when it has immediate effect, there’s justice,” he said.
Criminal fines are not fixed and can be negotiated. Repeated criminals face little punishment. Jassey said many Gambia fishermen believe trawlers are often turned over prior to the deployment of maritime blockage units.
Because the Gambia is so small, foreign ships often dock in nearby Senegal rather than in the capital of the Gambia, making it less likely that local governments will stand up to them.
However, last month, the Gambian army said the Navy had detained three ships for violations, including fishing, including the use of unauthorized and illegal fishing equipment. One was another ship in the Majilac group.
There are few external observers in the Gambia fisheries. Data collection is sparse. Sea Shepherd, a nonprofit conservation group, has agreed to jointly patrol the Gambia and the country’s waters, but did not visit last year as part of its mission to combat illegal fishing off the coast of West Africa.
The Gambian Seafarers Association is now encouraging fishermen to capture alleged violations by foreign ships and violent confrontations on video. Movie, don’t fight, that says.
The same association also provides foreign troll personnel with local crews that the government needs. Over the past two years, the Gambian government has increased its quota from 20% to at least 30%. This means that Gambians are more likely to fight Gambians.
Those fishermen are not trained in what to expect or how to protect themselves from what they call “the war of the sea” from Sanyan, the head of the association.
Eating fish makes it expensive
Disputes in the oceans off the coast of Gambia are occurring as fish stocks decrease. According to the May 2023 International Report on the Human Costs of Overcrowded Fish in May 2023, fish, including grouper, squid, sardinera and bonga are exploding in excess.
The Seafarers Association believes foreign ships will eventually move to nearby waters such as Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau, seeking more fish and local opposition.
The decline in fish stocks is affecting food security in the Gambia. Prices have risen, leaving fish out of reach for many people who draw from the ocean.
Instead, the majority of Gambians “rely rely on chicken imported from the world, which is very sad,” Jassey said.
He called the situation of local fishermen “very fragile.” Competition with foreign trolls has made many unable to afford jobs.
Traffickers buy boats.
“These agents have a lot of money. They can buy fishing boats, from fishermen who have been sitting for about six to seven months without fishing, to 3 to 400 or 500,000 sloppy,” Jassey says. “That’s why we’re losing so many young people.”
Lee, 24, still recovering from last year’s arson attack, spent the money he received from a foreign trawler as compensation – 51,000 slashes – three months on his 17,000 slashes. He spent it all on drugs.
Now he is thinking about giving up on fishing and taking the chance to move to Europe.
“I just want to work for me and my family to survive,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Mustafa Manne in Banjul, Gambia contributed.
___This story was supported by funding from the Walton Family Foundation. AP is solely responsible for all content. ___ Contact the AP’s Global Research Team (Email protection) or https://www.ap.org/tips/
