Government honours fishermen for rescuing sailors

The Karnataka Government has honoured the twenty fishermen, who risked their lives to save the sailors on-board a sinking cargo ship off Mangalore coast recently.

The fishermen had responded to the distress calls from the sailors on board the Eritrean ship, which was caught in a violent storm on June 23, and managed to save the lives of twenty-one of them before the cargo vessel could capsize about 250 metres from the Mangalore coast.

The Eritrean ship, which had a total of 24 people on board, was transporting 8,000 tonnes of furnace slag to United Arab Emirates (UAE) when the mishap took place.

Though the Coast Guard had launched a rescue operation, the coast guard vessel could not reach the stranded Eritrean ship, which soon started drifting and sinking. “That was when we jumped into the waters to save them”, said Yashwanth P Ameen, one of the fishermen, who was honoured on the occasion. “Since we are used to swimming in the rough seas, we offered help in saving the sailors”, Ameen added.

The twenty fishermen managed to save the lives of twenty-one sailors during the daring rescue operation. The rescued sailors belonged to various nationalities including Ghana, Bahrain and Eritrea. The dead bodies of the remaining three sailors were recovered from the waters later. Ameen felt sorry that they were unable to save the three other sailors.

The chests of the fishermen, who were brought to Bangalore in a special bus arranged by state-owned Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), swelled with pride when their gallant act was read out to a huge round of applause at the Raj Bhavan on Wednesday evening.
Karnataka Governor T N Chaturvedi presented each fisherman with a certificate and a cash reward of Rs 2,000 for their exemplary achievement. The felicitation function was part of the Independence Day celebrations at Raj Bhavan