Boats flying black flags and carrying opposition legislators demand that authorities block Indian trawlers.
Sri Lankan fishermen have launched a flotilla of boats to demand that the federal government do extra to guard the island nation’s prawn-rich northern waters from poaching by Indian fishers.
Boats flying black flags and carrying opposition legislators travelled 100km (60 miles) from the northeastern fishing city of Mullaittivu to Sri Lanka’s northernmost tip, Level Pedro, on Sunday.
“We’ve got are available boats to protest backside trawling by Indian fishermen,” M A Sumanthiran, a legislator for the principle Tamil opposition social gathering, the Tamil Nationwide Alliance (TNA), informed reporters in Level Pedro.
Backside trawling – which was banned from Sri Lankan waters in 2017 – entails dragging heavy nets throughout the seafloor to catch a big quantity of fish, inflicting extreme harm to the marine ecosystem.
The TNA stated it was protesting Sri Lankan authorities’ failure to cease poaching by Indian fishers and defend the impoverished native fishing communities.
There was no fast remark from the federal government.
Al Jazeera’s Minelle Fernandez, reporting from the capital Colombo, stated the fishing group has been complaining for years.
“On the root of it’s livelihood. It’s about Sri Lankan fishermen struggling to make ends meet, and what they are saying is mass-scale poaching by Indian fishing boats that come into Sri Lankan waters and take invaluable fish shares away with them,” Fernandez stated.
Fernandez stated protesters are asking the federal government to implement extra strongly the legal guidelines handed in 2017 and be sure that all offenders are held accountable.
Tensions between neighbours
India and Sri Lanka are separated by the slender Palk Strait, a wealthy fishing floor identified for jumbo prawns, and poaching has led to tensions between the South Asian neighbours.
Sri Lankan fishermen weren’t allowed to enterprise out throughout a lot of the island’s decades-long Tamil separatist conflict that led to Could 2009, permitting Indians a free run within the space.
However there have been rising tensions over poaching because the finish of the conflict.
Sri Lanka has often detained giant numbers of Indian fishers and seized their boats, however there was no let-up in poaching, in response to locals.
An Indian fisherman was allegedly killed by Sri Lankan forces in March 2017.