Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels.
The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.”
Photo: AFP
Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed to hospital on Monday after arriving at Quang Ngai port, state-run Tien Phong reported.
The men were attacked by about 40 people for three hours, the newspaper said.
“Wearing checkered clothes, they cruelly beat us with iron bars,” captain Nguyen Thanh Bien was quoted as saying, adding that he fell unconscious for about an hour after the attack.
Footage on Tien Phong’s Web site showed the fishers being taken from their boat on stretchers.
One had a broken leg and two had broken arms, the report said.
Nguyen Thanh Bien told authorities that about US$20,000 of equipment and fish had been stolen in the attack.
Phung Ba Vuong — who chairs the people’s committee of Binh Chau, the commune where the fishers live — said on Facebook that he “strongly opposed the barbarous acts by China.”
Neither the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs immediately replied to a request for comment.
In a separate incident on Sunday, Tien Phong reported that another Vietnamese fishing boat in the Paracel Islands was robbed of up to US$12,200 of equipment and fish.
The incident comes several weeks after Chinese People’s Liberation Army Lieutenant General He Lei (何雷) said that China “will resolutely crush any foreign hostile encroachment on China’s territorial, sovereign and maritime rights and interests.”
He made the statement on the sidelines of a defense forum in Beijing following a series of high-profile confrontations with Philippine ships in the waters.
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