Eleven persons on board a fishing vessel, Comforter 2, which sunk last Friday offshore between Elmina and Takoradi, have still not been found.
Meanwhile, the body of one person, believed to be a Chinese, who was the captain of the vessel, has been retrieved from the vessel with over 20 sailors of both Ghanaian and Chinese nationality
aboard.
The Deputy Director of the Fisheries Commission, Paul Bannerman, told the Asaase Breakfast Show yesterday that there were 26 crew members on the MV Comforter II vessel when the disaster occurred, but 15 had been rescued so far.
“The search and rescue operation started last Friday. As I speak, we’ve managed to rescue 15 persons and investigations are ongoing. A lot of vessels are helping with the search. Eleven are missing, and we’re still searching,” Mr Bannerman said.
The incident happened 97 nautical miles, south of Takoradi, along the western coast of Ghana, the Marine Police said.
He also clarified that the vessel is Ghanaian-owned, contrary to earlier reports that it belonged to the Chinese.
Reports also say that the Western Regional Director of the Fisheries Commission, Joseph Yeboah, disclosed that “the accident happened on Friday afternoon and some two of the sailors managed to swim till they were picked up by a sister vessel around 10 pm.”
“The vessel went back to the incident place to search and picked some three more sailors, plus the Captain, who was then dead. Nine others were picked up by a canoe, and were sent to Elmina and later went to Tema. In all, 15 sailors have been recovered with the Captain dead and others injured. There are 10 more sailors still been searched for now,” he said.
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