A Vietnamese naval ship, HQ 957, rescued nine foreign sailors whose boat was robbed in the sea of Truong Sa (Spratly) peninsula.

A Vietnamese naval ship, HQ 957, rescued nine foreign sailors whose boat was robbed in the sea of Truong Sa (Spratly) peninsula.

Victims told their story to Vietnamese officials.

Nguyen Son Ha, a senior official from the National Committee for Search and Rescue, said that HQ 957 was on the way from Toc Tan island to Nui Le island (belonging to the Spratly Islands) when they saw a lifeboat. There were nine people inside, including six Indonesian, two Malaysians and one Burmese, all of whom were very tired and panicked.

They told the Vietnamese sailors that they left Indonesia’s Kitap-Iado port on April 29 on a ship pulling a coal barge to Thailand. At 9pm on the same day, the ship was hit by a small fishing boat in the sea of Singapore. Seven sailors equipped with short guns and knives quickly commandeered their ship and held the nine sailors captive. At 11pm on May 2, the nine sailors were forced to board a lifeboat and they had drifted until rescued by the Vietnamese navy on May 3.

The victims were transferred to the Truong Sa 06 ship, which landed in Vung Tau on May 8.

The National Centre for Search and Rescue asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to help these foreign sailors.

PV