Fishers irked at tuna owner’s agency service to Tunisians

Fines issued against two Tunisian vessels caught fishing in Malta’s territorial waters were paid by a Maltese fishing company, MaltaToday has learnt.

Tunisian-flagged vessels Mohammed Yahia and Ayatou Allah were charged with fishing in Maltese waters without the necessary licence, and were handed a fine of €10,000 each.

But the local fishing community affected by Tunisian poachers is irked that a shipping agency owned by a tuna industry player, serviced the shipping owners back in Tunisia to pay the court fines.

The agency, Travelways International, is owned by Medina Ridge Holdings, which in turn is owned by Emanuel Azzopardi and Joseph Caruana.

Medina Ridge holds a halfstake in Medina Fisheries as well as in Intramed Fisheries. However, Travelways’ and Medina Ridge’s two directors, David Azzopardi and Joseph Caruana, are also directors of the tuna-farming company Fish & Fish. Azzopardi is one of its owners.

Sources who spoke to this newspaper said that around 260kg of lampuki were found on board the Tunisian vessels, the latest incident in the ongoing feud between Maltese lampuki fishers and Tunisian poachers.

MaltaToday reported in 2019 that Maltese fishermen had seen their catches plundered by Tunisian counterparts in what turned out to be a veritable war on the high seas. Some Maltese fishers claim to have been threatened by the Tunisians wielding machetes and Molotov cocktails.

They also documented the presence of a large, green Tunisian vessel, nicknamed the ‘Bin Laden’, which threatens to ram Maltese boats.

An industry spokesperson told MaltaToday that the Travelways company had only processed the payment after cash was wired in from the Tunisian fishing vessel owners, for the court fines to be paid.

But fishers who suffer the brunt of the Tunisian poaching war and who alerted MaltaToday to the transaction, were irked that a fishing industry player was servicing the poachers.

The fishers also claim they think the poachers might be alerted to the locations of Maltese lampuki lines. This rumour is unverified and not connected to the company in question.

“We have spent over 10 years trying to fix the situation, and then you hear this? It’s heart-breaking,” one fisher said. “That €10,000 fine was like a slap in the face. Just last week I went out there, and there were seven boats on my lines. I lost around €5,000 worth of fish that day alone.”

The situation has become unbearable for the members of ths fishing community. “This could be very well my last year working with lampuki. I’m going to lose my mind, and I have a family to feed.”

Sources within the fisheries directorate-general said government representatives are currently in discussions with Tunisian and European counterparts during the annual General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) meeting.

Maltese officials are pushing for lampuki Fishing Aggregating Devices (FADs) – the floats they employ to catch their quarry – to be monitored by the European Fisheries Control Agency’s (EFCA) inspection vessel, the Lundy Sentinel.

EU fisheries inspectors use the 61m Lundy Sentinel as a platform for the monitoring, boarding and inspection of fishing boats as well as associated transport and support vessels. The British-flagged Lundy Sentinel was built in 2015. The vessel also has the capability of launching up to three boarding boats. The GFCM session was concluded on Saturday.