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Article

16 May 2020

Author:
Andrea Vance, Stuff

Grieving family desperate to trace mystery fisheries observer

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[...]

...Eritara Kaierua..dashed off the nine lines while aboard the Win Far 636, fishing for tuna in the south west Pacific. [...]

Within 12 days, he was dead from a head wound. Police are now investigating his death as murder.

[...]

Kaierua had boarded the rusting tuna-fishing vessel in Pohnpei, Micronesia in February. He was working as fisheries observer, for the Kiribati government. His death was reported on March 3 in waters off Nauru.

These watchdogs travel aboard fishing fleets, monitoring endangered species by-catch and illegal dumping.

[...]

Kaierua was found lying on the floor of his locked cabin with a brutal head wound and bruising to his neck.

An autopsy revealed the blow caused his death and on March 29, police opened a murder investigation.

Stuff understands he was found partially laying on his mattress which was on the floor. There was blood on his nose and there was food on his chest and neck.

[...]

Kaierua is the tenth Pacific fisheries observer to die at sea in the last decade. And his murder brought to light the mysterious deaths of two more i-Kiribati monitors in the last three years.

[...]

Taiwan's Fisheries Agency Deputy Director-General Kuo-Ping Lin said the Taiwanese government reported the death to the WCPFC...ordered the crew to stop fishing and sail to Kiribati. The agency began its own investigation.

[...]

...Kuo Hsiung Fishery...[is the] owner of the 30-year old tuna purse seiner, or the Taiwan Tuna Purse Seiners Association.

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