China’s fishing fleet is causing havoc off Africa’s coasts

“The foremanEJFNGOEJF woke us up by hitting us,” said the sailor. For the next 20 hours, on a typical day, the bleary-eyed crew would be hauling up fishing nets. If sharks got entangled they would hack off their fins, tossing the mutilated creatures back into the water to die. When dolphins were ensnared, the captain shot them, cut out their teeth and bartered them with passing ships in return for whisky.These incidents all took place between 2017 and 2023 on Chinese fishing boats in the south-west Indian ocean, according to the Environmental Justice Foundation (), a London-based . China’s distant-water fishing fleet is the world’s largest and most controversial. It has long been accused of environmental and human-rights abuses in Latin America and west Africa. An investigation by the suggests it is terrorising fishermen and plundering the seas off east Africa, too.