Three Mexican fishermen who drifted more than 8 000km across the Pacific have been rescued near the Marshall Islands after at least three months at sea, an official said on Tuesday.
The fishermen were picked up on August 9 by a Taiwanese fishing boat belonging to Koo’s Fishing Company, said Eugene Muller, the company’s manager based in the Marshall Islands capital of Majuro.
”They were skinny and hungry when they were picked up last week but otherwise healthy,” said Muller. He added that they survived by catching seabirds and drinking rainwater.
Details of the fishermen’s ordeal were sketchy because of communication problems between the Chinese-speaking fishing boat crew and the Mexicans, he said.
Salvador Ordonez Vasques, Jesus Eduardo Vidana Lopez and Lucio Randon Bacerra from the Pacific coastal town of San Blas in central Mexico had been adrift for at least three months, according to their rescuers.
They were found in seas between the Marshall Islands and Kiribati in a fishing boat with two disabled outboard motors.
The Taiwanese fishing vessel is expected to return to Majuro to offload its catch of tuna and the Mexican fishermen in about two weeks.
Muller said the same fishing boat had picked up two drifting fishermen from Kiribati in March after they had been lost at sea for more than two months.
Muller has contacted the Marshall Islands government to ask the Mexican embassy in New Zealand, which handles relations with the Marshall Islands, to assist with getting the three men home. — Sapa-AFP