The graveyard of seized Indian fishing trawlers
(Pix by Samantha Perera )
- Individuals arriving in Indian fishing trawlers not only steal the rich-fish harvest of Sri Lankans, but also dangerously damage the marine environment
- Sri Lankan fishermen claim that when a couple of hundred Indian boats arrive they are unable to fight or resist them
- Calls are made by the Sri Lankan fishing community for the authorities to pay attention to the severe environment pollution being created by bottom trawling activities
- It is no secret that one of the chief entry points for drugs to Sri Lanka is via the sea routes connecting Talaimannar and Northern ports
Sri Lanka has been subjected to numerous foreign invasions since the beginning of its recorded history. Compared to the Portuguese, Dutch and English, the engagement with India, the island’s closest neighbour, is more consistent from a social, economic and cultural impact point of view. It is no secret that all these invaders have been attracted to the country’s tropical wealth like crops, spices, precious stones and natural resources. The latest form of this invasion has been taking place for the past two decades off the shores of Northern and Eastern provinces, where fishing vessels from Southern Indian coastal towns swarm to benefit from the rich marine resources of the island nation. The political authorities of the two neighbouring countries, which have arrived at consensus on many bilateral issues, have however failed to address this problem to date; hence it has not only neglected the woes of the northern fisherman, but also turned a blind eye to the devastating impact on the country’s rich marine environment.
Midnight invasion in Palk Strait
Multi-day trawler ‘Wasana 1’, which left Trincomalee Fisheries Harbour on a clear Friday evening in mid December last year was travelling at a steady speed of about four nautical miles per hour along the North Eastern coastline of Sri Lanka. Manned by four young seasoned seafarers, led by its 43-year-old skipper Dinesh, the 34.5 foot long Wasana 1 was a five tons weighing good sized trawler boat installed with all the modern communication and satellite navigation paraphernalia.
Having travelled about 100 nautical miles from Trincomalee towards the Northern seas for about 24 hours the skipper decided to give a break to the helm and lay anchor in the deep sea at a location, having Jaffna peninsula’s Kankesanthurai coast to its south and Nagapatnam coast of Southern India to its North West.
The skipper decided that it was an ideal spot to carry on their first round of trawling. This was going to be their first day of fishing in a multi-day trawling session. After fully laying the large net boatmen Udara (43), Suranga (35) and Kasun (33) were attending to various duties on board assigned to each of them. These tasks included checking the fishing gear, sorting the freezer compartment as well as preparing a meal to be consumed during the late night break.
It was just past midnight in the calm and clear night sea when Udara noticed a light in the form of a tiny dot appearing from the far off horizon. Thinking it to be a fishing vessel he went 
about his business to be soon alerted by Suranga pointing at the night horizon where the speck of light had multiplied into many more.
Like a swarm of fireflies the light dots were fast becoming larger giving the only impression that they were advancing towards Wasana 1 or rather towards the Sri Lankan waters in the deep sea. Within moments the crew figured that about 200 brightly lit fishing vessels rushing like a storm was nothing but a fleet of powerful Indian fishing trawlers making yet another night invasion of trawling in the fish-rich Sri Lankan waters.
Shocked with terror as the advancing foreign vessels would go passing Wasana 1 and could badly damage their trawling net, the crew started alerting the outsiders in frenzy with torches and screaming in Tamil that their nets were laid there. It was of no use. Two massive trawlers that went past Wasana 1 in a split second had dragged its net and vanished in no time tearing the fishing gear beyond irreparable damage. The stunned boatmen couldn’t do much, but helplessly gaze at their adversaries, who showed no mercy.
Myliddy Fishery Harbour in Jaffna
Bright noon sun rays hitting the calm sea waters of the Myliddy harbour on the Kankesanthurai coast were giving a silvery reflection on a couple of dozen local trawler boats including Wasana 1 that had been docked for various purposes. Dinesh and his team that had stopped for a regular refueling two weeks ago were reflecting upon the worst experience they had to experience in recent times and explained how the invading Indian boat issue was affecting them.
“We had to spend about Rs.100,000 to repair whatever remains of the fishing gear that we could salvage from the mid sea encounter. Besides, our entire multi-day trawling session went wasted as we had to return home empty handed. We usually expect a good fish harvest of about Rs.5 million from a 30-day fishing trip,” Suranga explained.
“From this amount the expenses for a 30-day trip would cost us about Rs.1.8 million. The expenses for the supplies include 3, 000 litres of diesel for the boat, 2, 000 litres of fresh water, sufficient food items for a month including fresh vegetables, poultry items, sweets and snacks and even plenty of booze to soften our fatigue and stress. The rest of the Rs.3.2 million is then divided in half between the owner of the trawler and the crew. But none of this couldn’t be achieved in December,” he said.
Crew member Kasun said that the Indian boats were a nightmare in their lives. “They not only steal our rich-fish harvest, but also dangerously damage the marine environment. Their boats are huge and are about thrice the size of ours. When a couple of hundred such boats come none of us can fight or resist them. Even the Navy could not resist them sometimes. We have complained to the Navy on many occasions, but they would only say that they will take care of the situation. But nothing happens,” he said.
Myliddy Fisheries Harbour situated on the top most edge of the Northern shoreline is a very crowded and active place to be in the early morning. Hundreds of boats both multi-day trawlers as well as regular light weight fishing vessels like motorboats arrive in the harbour every morning from dawn with their day’s catch.
Diminishing fish harvest
The pier of the harbour also gets packed with the outside visitors who throng to buy the fresh catch of the day. The people who gather there include fish vendors from Jaffna Town, the middle-men who would buy and transport fish to surrounding areas, local fisher community that would do door to door marketing and residents of the area that visit the harbour to buy fish for their daily needs.
Ravindran Priya is a 37-year-old mother of three children from the local fisher community in Myliddy. She hails from a traditional fishing family in the north and has visited Myliddy harbour every morning for the past six years, since the military released it after occupying the land around it for the past 30 years. Priya’s main source of income is generated by buying particular types of fish from the deep sea trawlers and preparing them to be sold as dry fish.
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There are over 80 Indian large trawlers docked at the far end of the Myliddy harbour
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Priya explained how her family and parents used to be engaged in the fisheries business peacefully about 25 years ago. This was before the fisher folk in Myliddy were displaced in 1990 due to the civil war and had to leave the area. About 15,000 fisher families settled around the Myliddy harbour were displaced and forced to scatter around the Jaffna District for many years and were deprived of their livelihood.
“But when we were granted our lands back in 2018 we found out that there had been another issue developing. That was the Indian bottom trawling issue. During the intervening period- when the fisher folks of Myliddy were displaced- some large local boat owners from elsewhere had started engaging in illegal bottom trawling in the abandoned fishing grounds of the displaced communities. This had even led to the poachers from across the Palk Strait to move towards the SL waters to engage in the same.
“Before all this happened we used to do business of over 100 kilos of fish per day, but now we can do only about 10 to 15 kilograms a day. The Indian trawling issue has become a big problem in our day to day lives now. Because they arrive in hundreds, the amount of fish caught by our local vessels have decreased significantly, thus this issue reflecting adversely on our income,” Priya said.
“I have two sons and a daughter to feed and have to fulfill their education needs. My husband is also doing business in the town. This issue is not helping us anymore. There are over 80 Indian large trawlers docked at the far end of the Myliddy harbour, which were being brought to the shore by the SL Navy from time to time. The captured boats are even taking up the space at the harbour and hinders the regular fisheries activities of the local fisher community,” she complained.
Graveyard of Indian ‘monster’ trawlers
In fact, Priya was right. When one enters the Myliddy fishery harbour the first sight the person would get is the pier (restored and renovated in February 2022) docked with a range of local fishing boats and the two story building of the harbour office towards the west. Tanks of diesel and kerosene as well as fresh water for the boats are available on the far west boundary. Myliddy fisheries harbour is run by Ceylon Fishery Harbour Corporation.
But when one explores further to the far east of the harbor, a grim sight of a somewhat abandoned area is visible; which is more likely a graveyard of about 100 massive and rusted trawler boats docked one next to another with some bearing the Indian flags on its masts. These monster looking boats, which are about thrice the size of the biggest local trawlers, have one common feature in all of them which the Sri Lankan boats do not possess. It is the tall arch style iron cranes fit to the latter part of each boat that enable the vessel to drag and pull the large nets affixed to heavy iron bars that would scrape the ocean bed with or in other words to engage in the most illegal fishing type of bottom trawling.
Since a great proportion of the Myliddy harbour has catered to accommodating the detained Indian trawlers the local fisher community had made a number of pleas to the authorities regarding the foreign vessels obstructing their day to day operations. There was a response to this call by Fisheries Minister Douglas Devananda who recently gave directions to the fisheries authorities to move the seized Indian vessels to an isolated section of the Myliddy harbour, which will not hinder the operations of the local fisher community.
It is the Sri Lanka Navy, which has the authority to detect and seize the intervening foreign vessels in the Sri Lankan waters. Elaborating on the enforcement of the law on the Indian trawlers, Sri Lanka Navy Spokesperson Captain Gayan Wickramasuriya said how an arduous task it is to control the situation.
Sri Lanka Navy’s role
Captain Wickramasuriya said that since the beginning of 2023 to March this year the Navy has seized 58 Indian fishing vessels and apprehended about 418 Indian fishermen. In 2023 the Navy apprehended 240 Indian fishermen whilst during the first three months of this year alone they have apprehended 178 Indian fishermen.
According to the spokesperson, it is not an easy task to deter these invading foreign vessels as they come in large numbers like 300 to 400 at any given time. Usually large naval vessels like Dovra and Fast Attack Crafts are used for the routine sea patrolling missions off the shores of Northern and North Eastern seas.
Some time back when the foreign vessels noticed an approaching Sri Lanka Naval vessel the former would withdraw from whatever fishing activity they had been engaged in the Sri Lanka waters and retreat towards the Indian shores. But due to their presence in large numbers, nowadays, sometimes, some of these vessels hesitate to even withdraw and remain in clusters and continue to engage in fishing.
“When these vessels are not paying heed to warnings we take them into custody and bring them along to the Sri Lankan shores for the legal proceedings. Even this too has become tricky these days as some of these foreign vessels try to put up resistance when we approach them,” Captain Wickramasuriya said.
He recalled two recent incidents where the Indian fishermen had tried to attack the approaching sailors with boiling water and also water mixed with broken glass particles. Getting these fishermen to surrender is no easy task as the Navy could not use their fire power to intimidate them and even they know about it.
When the Navy seizes an Indian trawler in the Northern seas the crew are usually brought to the Myliddy Fisheries Harbour to go through the legal formalities. The seized boat will be 
docked in the harbour amidst the previously captured vessels and the apprehended fishermen will be handed over to the Myliddy Fisheries Inspector for the next round of duties. The fisheries inspector will collect all the details of the apprehended foreign fishermen and enter them into their logs before taking them to the Point Pedro Magistrate Courts with the assistance of the local police.
Legal proceedings, prisons and immigration authorities
According to the law, the fishermen who get arrested for the first time will usually be released on bail after being given a strict warning and those who are apprehended for the second time will be sentenced to a six months or one year prison term once they are produced in courts. Those who were slapped with a jail term will be then handed over to the Prisons Department officials to be sent to the respective prisons in the North.
Those who were released will be then handed over to the Department of Immigration and Emigration to be detained in their custody until the time comes for their removal from the country.
Controller Investigation and Operations of the Department of Immigration and Emigration M G V Kariyawasam said that the Indian fishermen who had been released from courts would be handed over to them. The fishermen would then be brought to its detention facility in Welisara where they are kept until their travel papers are prepared by the Indian High Commission in Colombo.
Usually the High Commission of India will prepare temporary travel papers for the fishermen apprehended in Sri Lanka and provide air tickets for their return journey to the South Indian destinations. The fishermen will also get extra clothing and sanitary products also by the diplomatic mission.
“When the necessary documents are provided we complete the task of removing these fishermen from the country as per the Immigration and Emigration Law. The department recently sent 21 Indian fishermen and another 25 are remaining to be sent in due course of time,” Kariyawasam said.
It all began after 2002 ceasefire agreement with LTTE
The fishermen in the North believe the problem of the invading Indian trawler boat issue started following the ceasefire agreement, which the Government of Sri Lanka entered into with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in February 2002.
Jaffna District Fisheries Solidarity Movement President Rathnasingham Muralidaran said it is ironic that before the ceasefire agreement in 2002, the LTTE used to control the Northern sea area and there was no Indian fishing vessel that was daring enough to make their harvesting in the Sri Lankan territorial waters.
But with the ceasefire agreement in place and the LTTE patrolling vessels withdrawing with time a new opportunity arose for the foreign vessels to engage in illegal fisheries activities without fear of being countered and fired upon.
The traditional fishing methods of the Northern fishermen died a natural death by 2008, where many lucrative and powerful local fishermen even started engaging in illegal methods like bottom trawling with the political influence as no law was applied to them.
“Before 2009, the Indian trawler issue was felt mainly in the areas of Mannar and Delft Island. But since then the problem spread like a plague in the fisheries areas of Kankesanthurai, Myliddy, Chundikulam, Kokku Thoduvai, Mullaitivu and Mannar.
“Those days the Indian boats would come only in the night. But now even in the broad daylight they come in great numbers towards the sea areas of Katchatheevu and Delft Island,” Muralidaran said.
He said the issue had been brought to the knowledge of many Tamil politicians in the North both in the ruling party and the opposition, but nobody has found a solution to the poor fisherman’s issue.
“There are enough and more laws in the Sri Lankan legal system to control these intervening foreign vessels, but nobody is taking any action. Even the Navy is assuring they would take action, but what they do is make ‘sample arrests’ just to please the fisher community.
There is another grave issue tangled with the illegal Indian fishing activity. That is the smuggling of narcotic drugs into the country from South Indian areas. It is no secret that one of the chief entry points for drugs to Sri Lanka is via the sea routes connecting Talaimannar and Northern ports. Local and Indian fishing parties that meet at mid sea locations exchange narcotics and other illicit goods without a hindrance.
We blame the political authority of this country for not actively engaging in this issue. Forget about the plight of the Northern fishermen, but at least pay attention to the severe environment pollution being created by bottom trawling. What is now left for us is to hang ourselves,” he lamented.
