Accident on the High Seas

JOMORO :
Accident on the High Seas

What should have passed off as a normal fishing trip for daily bread by seven fishermen, turned tragic when their boat was run into by a supply ship in the deep waters off Half Assini in the Jomoro District of the Western Region, resulting in the drowning of four of them.

The remaining three were rescued by the crew of the ship.



According to the Daily Graphic in a story filed by Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, as of press time, a search team organised to help retrieve the bodies of the four drowned fishermen had not yet achieved its mission.

The names of the four were given as Okantah Duodu, 52; Felix Odenke Annan, 37; Ayitey Armah, 41, all from Osu in the Greater Accra Region, and Kobina Andrew, 51, from Sekondi.

The names of the three rescued fishermen were also given as Michael Tetteh, 41; William Annan Osam, 23, and Sui Mensah, 45.



The fishermen were said to have anchored and were fast asleep in their canoe, after many hours of fishing, waiting for the dawn of the next day to sail back to their base in Sekondi with their catch when the Supply Platform Ship, belonging to Seacon Madison, moving in the same direction, collided with their canoe.

The supply ship was said to be moving from Abidjan to Togo.

The badly damaged canoe was washed ashore the coast of Esiama in the Nzema East District.

Apart from the four dying and their canoe being damaged, the outboard motor, hooks, fuel and other fishing tools were also lost in the collision.

When the Daily Graphic contacted one of the survivors on telephone, he said "My brother, I cannot say anything now. I am traumatized; I cannot think straight, and I have too much on my mind." "It will be difficult for me to tell you something without recollecting the painful incident that night. I am not OK, my brother. I beg you; I am sorry," he said, as his voice faded off on the telephone.

The Graphic said a source informed it that the fishermen had sailed from Sekondi on July 4, 2007 for their usual fishing expedition.

They had fished throughout the night into the next day and had had enough for the night. They then decided to anchor to take a rest to regain their strength so that they could sail back to their base in Sekondi in the morning.



The source said at the time of the incident, all the seven men were sleeping and so they could not see the supply ship approaching. One of them who woke up started shouting but it was too late for him to wake his colleagues up before the giant ship ran into their canoe, resulting in the death of the four.

The captain of the ship then ordered the crew to stop for them to search for the fishermen in the canoe, but after 18 hours of search, they managed to rescue only three of them.

The captain and his men then moved to the Sekondi Naval Base where they reported the incident.



The families of the four in Accra, Sekondi and New Takoradi, according to the source, had been contacted by officials in Takoradi to inform them about the disaster.

The Chairman of the Land-Hook Canoe Fishermen Association, Mr Emmanuel Oninku, who spoke to the Daily Graphic, was grateful to the captain for stopping the supply ship to rescue the victims. He said other captains would have ignored them.



He said at the moment the three rescued fishermen were doing well, having been told to return to the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) Clinic in Takoradi if they complained of pains.

Asked if they had to sleep on the ocean, the fishermen laughed and said it was a normal practice, explaining that they did not use compasses or other sophisticated maps, as such when they became tired they anchored and rested till dawn before sailing back to the shore.