Night settles over the Gambian coast, and 4 fishermen drift of their picket canoe, a number of kilometres from shore. Having solid their nets close to How Ba seashore, within the nation’s slim stretch of tropical waters, they now wait. In a couple of hours, they are going to haul of their catch and pack the fish into bins stuffed with ice.
Then, in the dead of night, two small navigation lights – crimson and inexperienced – seem on the horizon, gliding silently nearer. At first the fishermen assume it’s one other canoe. But inside seconds the ocean erupts in a brutal affect. A metal trawler, the Majilac 6, has slammed into their rickety boat, shattering it. The trawler, weighing a number of tons, presses on with out stopping, its lights extinguished, and disappears into the darkish.
The collision takes place roughly six nautical miles from land. Of the 4 Senegalese fishers on board, two die nearly instantly. The youngest crew member, 14-year-old Bubakar M’Baye, is left clinging to the wreckage together with his cousin Assan, 25. For hours they maintain on, battered by the waves. But because the night time wears on, Assan’s grip loosens. Surrendering to exhaustion, he drifts off into the swell.
When daybreak lastly breaks, one other canoe of fishers comes throughout Bubakar, gripping the keel of what’s left of his boat. He is pulled out alive.
The catastrophe of the Majilac 6, in the course of the night time of 7-8 March 2024, isn’t an remoted tragedy. It is a part of a sample: industrial trawlers trespassing in The Gambia’s inshore waters, that are reserved for artisanal fishing.
Across West Africa, the competitors for fish has grown fierce. Industrial fleets, typically Chinese or European, are trawling deep and near the coast, eroding native shares and encroaching on the livelihoods of small-scale fishers. Local crews are compelled to push additional and additional out to sea, chasing dwindling catches. The wrestle is relentless and it’s changing into lethal.
According to satellite tv for pc knowledge collected by Global Fishing Watch, which tracks massive vessels to examine for criminal activity, at the very least 4 trawlers from the Majilac fleet seem to have continued fishing illegally inside The Gambia’s nine-nautical-mile coastal restrict – a zone reserved for artisanal boats underneath nationwide legislation. The catches from these incursions are later unloaded on the port of Banjul, the capital, the place sure species are offered regionally or exported to neighbouring international locations equivalent to Senegal.
But not all of the fish land on the predominant port. Up the Gambia River, past the mangrove swamps close to Banjul, trawlers pull in at a discreet dock operated by Hansen Seafood, a processing firm.
Directly in entrance of this secondary dock, a rusting vessel is moored. Its title, painted faintly on the hull, reads Majilac 2. Nearby, two different trawlers sit in dry dock, present process repairs. On their lifebuoys, the phrase Majilac can nonetheless simply be made out, although the boats themselves have been freshly repainted.
We are visiting a yr after the lethal Majilac 6 accident. At the doorway to the constructing, three flags flutter above the gate: Italian, Spanish and Gambian. An worker we encounter exterior explains that the managers should not on web site. He insists the Majilac vessels are owned not by Hansen Seafood however by a Chinese firm.
In truth, the trawlers themselves don’t belong to the processing plant. Hansen Seafood is owned by the Spanish conglomerate Congelados Maravilla, headquartered in Vigo, one in all Galicia’s seafood hubs. The firm is among the many area’s main importers, distributing wholesale throughout Europe, primarily to Spain, Italy and Portugal.
Its founder, Giuseppe (or José) Mellino, is an Argentinian businessman of Italian descent. He introduced the acquisition of the Gambian firm in 2022. The Denton Bridge plant, positioned on the gateway to Banjul, is billed by the Galician group as one of many largest seafood-processing amenities in West Africa and the most important in The Gambia. Tons of octopus, cuttlefish and various fish are packed there each day for export.
When contacted for this investigation, Congelados Maravilla denied proudly owning the Majilac vessels. The firm states that since final yr it has sourced seafood solely from native artisanal fishers. But it doesn’t deny having beforehand purchased and exported merchandise from the Majilac fleet, insisting that these purchases had been a part of agreements already in place when it took over Hansen Seafood in 2022.
This implies that at the very least till final yr, the corporate was packaging and exporting fish caught illegally in Gambian waters. Roughly 30 % of those exports went to Italy, whereas greater than half had been shipped to Vigo – typically routed via the Portuguese port of Leixões, about 150 kilometres south of Vigo. In 2023 alone, at the very least 520 tonnes of frozen fish arrived in Spain from the Denton Bridge plant, at a time when Hansen Seafood was totally underneath Congelados Maravilla’s possession and nonetheless receiving common shipments from the Majilac fleet.
About 80 individuals are employed at Hansen Seafood’s processing and cold-storage plant. The fish they deal with comes from the unique financial zone of Africa’s smallest mainland nation. The firm claims that the brand new Spanish administration has performed a sweeping renovation for the reason that facility was acquired from Chinese homeowners in 2022: upgrading infrastructure, putting in trendy equipment and bettering labour circumstances for a workforce made up largely of Gambians.
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When Congelados Maravilla introduced the acquisition that yr, it declared an annual processing capability of as much as 5,000 tonnes of seafood. Yet in an e mail response to questions for this investigation, the corporate stated the precise quantity ranges from 800 to 1,000 tonnes. To put that in perspective: given the EU’s common per-capita fish consumption – round 23 kilograms a yr – the plant’s output is sufficient to provide solely round 40,000 Europeans.
For The Gambia, the stakes of fishing are excessive. The river Gambia’s nutrient-rich waters, which empty into the Atlantic, have made the previous British colony a main fishing floor. But that abundance has additionally turned the nation into one in all Africa’s hotspots for unlawful fishing. For years, NGOs and worldwide companies have referred to as consideration to the issue. But vested pursuits run deep, and the state has struggled to defend its marine assets towards the dual pressures of overseas fleets and native corruption.
“These trawlers are a menace. Incidents occur each single day, but the overseas vessels are by no means held accountable”, says Omar Gaye, of the Gambian Artisanal Fishermen’s Association. As a fisher himself, he is aware of the dangers firsthand. He needed to file a grievance after a trawler from the Majilac fleet tore via his nets one night time, leaving them in shreds.
National delivery information verify that Majilac Fishing Company, which runs the fleet, is managed by a mixture of Chinese shareholders and Gambian nationals.
For the authorities, the Majilac trawlers are hardly new adversaries. In 2019, when the fleet nonetheless operated underneath the Hansen title, 4 vessels had been caught fishing illegally simply 4.5 nautical miles off the coast – lower than half the authorized restrict. Each vessel was fined roughly €11,700.
Yet the incursions have continued. In March 2024, the Gambian navy launched a brand new enforcement operation, this time in collaboration with Age of Union, a vessel operated by the environmental group Sea Shepherd. Over the course of the patrol, seven industrial trawlers had been detained whereas fishing illegally near shore, in waters the place dozens of picket canoes work day and night time.
Among the vessels rounded up within the March 2024 crackdown, 4 belonged to the Majilac fleet. All had been utilizing unlawful nets with mesh so tremendous that they scooped up small species – tiger prawns, shrimp, cuttlefish and extra – effectively under the authorized catch measurement. Yet the joint patrols between the Gambian navy and Sea Shepherd haven’t discouraged these trawlers from returning to unlawful fishing as soon as launched.
Meanwhile, the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement (SFPA) stays in drive between the European Union and The Gambia. Under the deal, the EU pays The Gambia €550,000 a yr in change for entry by European vessels to catch-limited quotas of high-value species equivalent to tuna and cod. Half of that sum is meant to be earmarked by the Gambian authorities for growing the fisheries sector. It is meant to pay for monitoring, coverage work, and enforcement towards unlawful fishing.
In observe, nevertheless, a number of trawlers – together with the Majilac 3 and Majilac 7 – together with different Chinese-flagged vessels, proceed to function illegally contained in the nine-nautical-mile coastal zone reserved for artisanal canoes. At instances, they edge to inside simply three miles of the shore. Satellite knowledge exhibits that these identical trawlers proceed to dock at Hansen Seafood’s amenities to at the present time.
In response to questions for this investigation, Congelados Maravilla reiterated that it stopped buying seafood from the Majilac trawlers a yr in the past. Still, the vessels proceed to unload their catches on the firm’s dock underneath earlier agreements. The agency insists that each one fish landed at their dock is now purchased by different wholesalers, and that not a single octopus or cuttlefish is at the moment bought by the Spanish group.
“Here in The Gambia, there are about 5,000 canoes dedicated to artisanal fishing, heading out to sea each day”, says Omar Gaye, of the Artisanal Fishermen’s Association, underscoring the commerce’s social significance. “The trawlers do no matter they need. The proof is true there for everybody to see. I don’t perceive why nobody stops them.”
The scale of the issue extends far past The Gambia’s shores. Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing accounts for one-fifth of world fish catches, in response to the Financial Transparency Coalition. Its market worth is estimated at between $10 billion and $23.5 billion yearly. West Africa alone is believed to symbolize roughly 40 % of this complete. The result’s a lack of greater than $9 billion for international locations within the area, along with shrinking biodiversity and the depletion of a significant supply of protein for West Africans.
National delivery information verify that Majilac Fishing Company, which runs the fleet, is managed by a mixture of Chinese shareholders and Gambian nationals.
For the authorities, the Majilac trawlers are hardly new adversaries. In 2019, when the fleet nonetheless operated underneath the Hansen title, 4 vessels had been caught fishing illegally simply 4.5 nautical miles off the coast – lower than half the authorized restrict. Each vessel was fined roughly €11,700.
Yet the incursions have continued. In March 2024, the Gambian navy launched a brand new enforcement operation, this time in collaboration with Age of Union, a vessel operated by the environmental group Sea Shepherd. Over the course of the patrol, seven industrial trawlers had been detained whereas fishing illegally near shore, in waters the place dozens of picket canoes work day and night time.
Among the vessels rounded up within the March 2024 crackdown, 4 belonged to the Majilac fleet. All had been utilizing unlawful nets with mesh so tremendous that they scooped up small species – tiger prawns, shrimp, cuttlefish and extra – effectively under the authorized catch measurement. Yet the joint patrols between the Gambian navy and Sea Shepherd haven’t discouraged these trawlers from returning to unlawful fishing as soon as launched.
Meanwhile, the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement (SFPA) stays in drive between the European Union and The Gambia. Under the deal, the EU pays The Gambia €550,000 a yr in change for entry by European vessels to catch-limited quotas of high-value species equivalent to tuna and cod. Half of that sum is meant to be earmarked by the Gambian authorities for growing the fisheries sector. It is meant to pay for monitoring, coverage work, and enforcement towards unlawful fishing.
In observe, nevertheless, a number of trawlers – together with the Majilac 3 and Majilac 7 – together with different Chinese-flagged vessels, proceed to function illegally contained in the nine-nautical-mile coastal zone reserved for artisanal canoes. At instances, they edge to inside simply three miles of the shore. Satellite knowledge exhibits that these identical trawlers proceed to dock at Hansen Seafood’s amenities to at the present time.
In response to questions for this investigation, Congelados Maravilla reiterated that it stopped buying seafood from the Majilac trawlers a yr in the past. Still, the vessels proceed to unload their catches on the firm’s dock underneath earlier agreements. The agency insists that each one fish landed at their dock is now purchased by different wholesalers, and that not a single octopus or cuttlefish is at the moment bought by the Spanish group.
“Here in The Gambia, there are about 5,000 canoes dedicated to artisanal fishing, heading out to sea each day”, says Omar Gaye, of the Artisanal Fishermen’s Association, underscoring the commerce’s social significance. “The trawlers do no matter they need. The proof is true there for everybody to see. I don’t perceive why nobody stops them.”
The scale of the issue extends far past The Gambia’s shores. Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing accounts for one-fifth of world fish catches, in response to the Financial Transparency Coalition. Its market worth is estimated at between $10 billion and $23.5 billion yearly. West Africa alone is believed to symbolize roughly 40 % of this complete. The result’s a lack of greater than $9 billion for international locations within the area, along with shrinking biodiversity and the depletion of a significant supply of protein for West Africans.
Under European legislation, all fish imported into the EU have to be accompanied by a catch certificates specifying the place and by which vessel it was caught, thus guaranteeing that it was not taken illegally. The duty for issuing these paperwork lies with nationwide authorities – on this case, the Gambian state.
The fishermen concerned within the Majilac 6 incident had been all from Saint Louis, in northern Senegal, together with Bubakar and his father, Mussa. “We come again yearly, in the course of the Tabaski competition, to be with our households”, Mussa M’Baye explains. Fishing waters close to Saint Louis are actually overexploited, making it tough to compete with each native canoes and the overseas industrial trawlers which have lengthy plied the Senegalese coast.
In The Gambia, in contrast, Senegalese fishing communities face much less competitors – though that stability is shifting. Mussa and Bubakar reside within the coastal village of Sanyang, alongside different fishermen from neighbouring international locations, significantly Guinea Conakry and Senegal. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has a deep custom of fishing.
The depletion of West Africa’s fish shares is pushing the area’s coastal dwellers to hunt livelihoods elsewhere. It is fueling migration towards the European Union, most notably the perilous path to the Canary Islands.
Along the seashores close to Tanji, dozens of canoes are being readied for multi-day fishing journeys. The boats’ holds are stacked with ice-filled sacks to protect the catch. Local fishermen are unloading their hauls immediately onto the shore, the place the fish is offered. Many right here complain concerning the massive trawlers that slip in at night time, tearing via their nets. The losses can quantity to 1000’s of euros.
The each day catch from the canoes is generally offered at native markets for consumption inside The Gambia. Part of it’s transported in refrigerated vans to markets in Saint Louis and Dakar.
Mussa M’Baye is weighed down by a sense of duty to the households of the three fishermen who died in Saint Louis in the course of the Majilac 6 incident. He owned the ill-fated canoe. Hassan, one of many useless, was his nephew.
As of this report, neither the homeowners of the Majilac 6 nor its captain have confronted any penalties for the deadly accident.
Meanwhile, the broken canoe has been rebuilt and is again at sea. Even younger Bubakar, although clearly nonetheless traumatised by that night time, has returned to fishing. He is looking for his place on a sea that’s more and more crowded, contested, and harmful.
🤝 This reportage is supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network
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