Bayelsa community raises alarm as foreign fish trawlers attack rural fishermen

CHINEDU WOSU, YENAGOA

Opu-Okumbiri Community in Brass Local Government Area of Bayelsa state on Wednesday raised alarm over the frequent unwarranted attacks by  trawlers on local fishermen in the continental shelf shallow waters.

The community’s leadership also called on the state and the Federal governments to intervene in the frequent trawlers attacks on the local fishing folks.

They also claimed that the trawler operators sporadically shoot fisher men and women at sight and drag along their fishing gears thereby disrupting the peaceful traditional occupation of the rural-coastal dwellers.

The leadership in a statement claimed loss of various types of fishing nets and hook lines both day and night leaving the people in abject poverty.

Recounting her ordeal, Madam Romans Kumosuote, who lost three bundles of various types of fishing nets to Trawler operators said, “I need help to survive the hardship. I am a widow, a grandmother with several children.”

The statement equally accused the trawler operators of shooting one Mr. Tata Gabriel on the head claiming that he sustained wounds, while Mr. Godspower Babudugu, 47 years escaped from the attack unhurt.

Elsewhere, in Okumbiribeleu, Mr. Oliver Ilegimokumo and Mr. Tobin Korite, who in their separate lone-fishing expeditions encountered the ugly situations, said the rampaging trawler operators’ bullets hit them but left them unhurt; even as, they displayed the bullets found in the boats as evidence.

Other hazards the littoral indigenes experience, include unknown gunmen, sea pirates’ attacks, boats mishaps, incessant spills of crude oil by petroleum exploring companies, bad weather which results in occasional loss of lives and property; thus making life unbearable.

These menaces, the community said, threaten the survival of the people.

The community, therefore, appealed to the Joint Military Task Force (JTF)  to patrol the coastal areas so as to curb the activities of the foreign Trawler operators  as the coast is vulnerable for these invaders who come into Nigeria through the Atlantic Ocean.