NAGERCOIL: Of the nine fishermen who had recently fled from their Yemeni sponsor through sea, six men from the district expressed their gratitude on Monday, thanking the Tamil Nadu and Kerala state governments and Indian Coast Guards for taking measures to rescue them.
One of them, Sahaya Jahan from Colachel, said that the nine were hired by the sponsor by the end of last year to work in his mechanised vessel in Yemen. He said that the sponsor did not provide them their share of the catch and forbade them from returning home after they had protested.
“Without food, we again ventured into the sea for fishing. Though we had contacted some persons from Kanniyakumari district, no one came forward to help us. Besides, we were not able to contact Indian officials there in Yemen.”
Gathering food and fuel only got them as far as 1,300 nautical miles off the Yemeni coast, as Sahaya Jahan said that they had to sail through rough winds in the sea and they soon ran out of food and fuel. “We informed a relative through a satellite phone that we were about 250 nautical miles off the Indian coast,” he said, adding that the signal went off after they spoke a mere few words.