A Philippine crew member who allegedly killed and attacked crewmates aboard a Taiwanese fishing vessel in the Indian Ocean last month has been arrested by the coast guard, but six foreign crew members are still missing, the Fisheries Agency said yesterday.
The 255-tonne Wen Peng had 24 crew members onboard — three Taiwanese, 10 Filipinos and 11 Indonesians — when a conflict broke out on Feb. 20 as the vessel sailed about 900 nautical miles (1,665km) off the south coast of Sri Lanka, the agency said.
The boat’s chief officer allegedly killed one Filipino and one Indonesian, and ordered some of their crewmates to jump into the water, it said.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration
As of Feb. 22, the Taiwanese — the captain, the chief engineer and an observer for the agency — as well as 12 other crew members had been rescued by Taiwanese vessels Shang Feng No. 3 and Hung Fu No. 88, with the latter asked to help monitor the Wen Peng with the suspect onboard until the coast guard arrived, it said.
Eight officials from the agency and the Coast Guard Administration on Feb. 23 flew to Sri Lanka and boarded another Taiwanese vessel, the Chao Feng No. 277, which reached the area at 8:30am on Saturday, it said.
Coast guard personnel spent about 13 hours negotiating with the suspect, as the Wen Peng’s cabin door was locked from inside and the boat’s rails were electrified, the coast guard said.
At 9:20pm, the suspect surrendered, jumping overboard and swimming to the Chao Feng, where he was arrested, it said.
Coast guard patrol boat Hsun Hu No. 8, which departed from Kaohsiung on Feb. 21, yesterday met with Chao Feng No. 277 and Hung Fu No. 88 at 6:20pm and took over the suspect, the coast guard said.
Six crew members — one Filipino and five Indonesians — who were reportedly forced to jump into the sea have been missing for a long time, Fisheries Agency Deputy Director-General Lin Kuo-ping (林國平) said, adding that rescue operations might be called off, as 72 hours have passed since they went missing.
SWITCH TO BEIJING: The government severed diplomatic relations about an hour after Honduras announced the move, saying that no semi-official ties would be maintained Taiwan severed diplomatic ties with Honduras and ended all cooperation with the Central American country, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, about an hour and a half after the Honduran Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Twitter at 8am Taiwan time that the nation would cut its ties with Taiwan. Honduran President Xiomara Castro on Wednesday sent Honduran Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduardo Enrique Reina to Beijing to negotiate the establishment of diplomatic relations. She announced the plan on March 14 on Twitter. “To safeguard Taiwan’s sovereignty and dignity, Taiwan is terminating diplomatic ties with Honduras with immediate effect” after communication with
TRADE MISSION: After Fijian elections in December last year, pro-democratic parties formed a coalition and overruled a name change imposed by the former government The Taipei Trade Office in Fiji has been restored to its former name, the Trade Mission of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the Republic of Fiji, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. Fiji on Friday last week issued a note verbale to the office saying that the name change was retroactively effective from March 15, Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs Director-General Wallace Chow (周民淦) told a news conference in Taipei. The mission’s diplomatic privileges have been reinstated as stipulated in Fiji’s Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Act, which was enacted in 1971, Chow said. Taiwan set up a trade
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday departed for a 12-day trip to China as scheduled, despite calls for him to cancel the trip after Honduras severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan as an apparent result of China’s dollar diplomacy. “This is my first trip to China. I was 37 when I began handling cross-strait affairs in the government. Now I am 73 and have waited 36 years for the visit. It is indeed a bit too long, but I am glad I can go,” Ma of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) told reporters at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. “Aside from paying respects to
‘INDISPENSABLE ROLE’: Despite stopovers in the US, Tsai said the aim of her trip is to ‘demonstrate determination to deepen exchanges’ with the allies of the nation President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday afternoon left Taiwan on a 10-day trip to Central America that includes stopovers in New York and Los Angeles. “Through this visit, I will express my gratitude to diplomatic partners for their support of Taiwan,” Tsai said at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport shortly before boarding the plane. The trip to Guatemala and Belize — her first overseas journey since the COVID-19 pandemic began sweeping around the world in early 2020 — aims to “demonstrate Taiwan’s determination to deepen exchanges” with its Central American allies, she said. Tsai said that she and her delegation would also explore the possibility
RSS