Cape Town – The Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Senzeni Zokwana has sent his condolences to the families of the fishermen who lost their lives during a freak trawler accident at the weekend.
Twelve men lost their lives when the fishing vessel encountered a storm when the weather changed for the worse, south of Cape Hangklip, on Sunday. While nine bodies have so far been recovered, a search is still on to recover the three remaining bodies, who were identified by elimination.
The SA Maritime Authority is investigating the circumstances of the loss of lives.
Shortly after meeting the fishing company’s executives, the Minister took a brief tour of the fishing trawler, named Lincoln, which is docked at the quay alongside the Viking Fishing’s headquarters on Thursday.
Speaking to media afterwards, he said lessons should be drawn from the accident to avoid future loss of lives.
“As a department we would like to pass our condolences to the families of those who passed on hoping that they will find closure and that those still missing bodies will be found in time.
“As the department we have been briefed by the company. Because there is another SA Maritime Safety Authority process that is seeking to find out what could have happened, we have avoided going into areas that seeks to delve into those as this is not our terrain.”
He said the department was concerned that there was a loss of life in the incident.
“We believe that from this we can draw lessons as to how best we should be prepared ... We should not see this as an issue of Viking Fishing, we must see it as a possibility in all other fishing vessels. Nobody must go to sea and not come back,” he said.
Rory Williams, the financial director of Viking Fishing, said trauma counselling had been arranged for families as they went to identify the bodies of their loved ones on Thursday.
He said the fallen fishermen were a great asset to the company and that their sudden loss had affected everyone.
Williams said while the fishermen had life cover and pension benefits, the company would assist family members with any funeral arrangements.
He added that a memorial service would be arranged alongside the Lincoln Vessel soon. – SAnews.gov.za
