Montevideo is the second port with the greatest illegality in the world

DENOUNCES EL PAIS: Foreign fishermen disembark in the port one dead crew member per month

URUGUAY
Monday, November 19, 2018, 10:50 (GMT + 9)

Montevideo - The fishing boats that arrive at the port of Montevideo come full of surprises. One tonne of toothfish without declaring here, another ton of blue shark there and some boxes with 1,400 kilos of cocaine hidden somewhere. Half a ton of hake here, a ton and a half of breams over there and a dead crew member in one of the bunk beds. Not always, of course, but too often. Because since 2013, on average, once a month the capital port receives a fishing vessel that has lost one of its crew due to the precarious and often illegal working conditions that exist on board these ocean traders.

At four o'clock in the afternoon the Indonesians sleep. There, almost on the other side of the planet, the four of Uruguay are two o'clock in the morning. But Budi had not been able to sleep for three days. It was not jet lag or the anxiety of stepping on firm ground. He had a toothache that made it hard for him to rest. He was insisting to the captain of the ship Yun Mao No. 168 to change the itinerary and out of urgency to the nearest port, without success. When the Uruguayan officers rescued him in Montevideo, still alive, he was pale and on the verge of fainting. A sailor came to joke: "It looks like a doll made in Taiwan", referring to the flag of the boat. He died a few hours later. The infection was fulminating.

► Asian jigging vessels type dedicated to fishing squid moored in Puerto Montevideo

These are not stories from a pirate movie. These are official data from the National Administration of Ports and the National Navy, compiled by the NGO Oceanosanos. In September of last year, in fact, a diplomatic delegation from Indonesia visited Uruguay to investigate the case of the body of his compatriot. And the investigation showed that the slavery situation of the crew was such that the managers refused to discontinue the fishing to attend to their companion on board.

The National Naval Prefect, Fernando Pérez, confirmed that, in 52 months, the foreign fishing vessels dropped 53 dead in the port. In a letter that bears his signature and to which El País agreed, he also said that 11 sick crew members have descended and that this type of vessel has staged four fires.

Crewmen of a Korean squid jigging vessel in Montevideo port. (Photo: barcosmon.blogspot.com) ►

Montevideo is the second most visited port in the world by illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing transshipment boats. This was confirmed by a satellite study carried out last year by Global Fishing Watch, the NGO founded by Google and financed by the foundation of actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

The port of Okhotsk, the name of the first settlement of eastern Russia, is the point of greatest fishing illegality. And then Montevideo comes because of the enormous amount of fishing that they capture without declaring in the exclusive zone of the Argentine sea. (continue...

Jiggers Fishing vessels of Asian origin dedicated to the fishing of squid in the South Atlantic (Photo: Port of Montevideo / visionmaritima.com.uy)

Written by Tomer Urwicz / El Pais | Read the full version here (Spanish)

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