A Taiwanese-owned fishing trawler last month rescued four men from Kiribati who spent nearly a month adrift in the Pacific surviving on fish after their boat was blown off course by a storm, officials in the Marshall Islands said on Wednesday.
The men, given a clean bill of health on arrival in the Marshall Islands on Wednesday, were dropped off in the capital, Majuro, by the trawler which had come across their small wooden boat several hundred kilometers south of the city.
Tatika Ukenio, Boiti Tetinauiko, Bonibai Akau and Moamoa Kamwea on Wednesday told officials they left their home in Kiribati, an island nation more than 650km from the Marshalls, on March 23.
Photo: AFP
Although details of their ordeal are still sketchy, they were blown off course by a storm and later turned off their single outboard engine to conserve fuel and began drifting.
They survived by catching fish with gear they had on board before spotting the Taiwanese-owned, Marshalls-flagged Koo’s 102 on April 18.
When the castaways saw the trawler, they had enough fuel left to get close to the vessel and attract the crew’s attention.
Koo’s Fishing Co representative Orlando Paul said the men were “fit and well” after being picked up, so the trawler continued its fishing expedition before returning to Majuro on Wednesday.
The men were taken to Majuro Hospital, where doctors said they were healthy.
They are staying at the Marshall Islands Resort while the Marshalls Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the International Organization for Migration arrange their repatriation to Kiribati, which is expected on Sunday.
On the other side of the Pacific, the US Coast Guard on Wednesday said that a Colombian mariner was rescued after surviving a two-month ordeal in the southeastern Pacific, but his three companions reportedly died.
The agency said in a news release that the 29-year-old man survived by eating fish and seagulls, after the group’s 23-foot (7m) skiff became disabled in a lightly traveled area of the ocean.
The Panamanian-flagged merchant ship Nikkei Verde rescued the man more than 3,200km southeast of Hawaii and notified the US Coast Guard on April 26 of the rescue.
A US Coast Guard boat picked the man up from the China-bound Nikkei Verde and he arrived in Honolulu on Wednesday, where he was reported to be in good condition.
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