A Chinese vessel rammed a Vietnamese fishing boat until the latter sank when the boat was fishing within Vietnam’s Hoang Sa (Paracel) Islands in the South China Sea on Wednesday [March 6]. 
A Vietnamese fishing boat was rammed by Chinese vessels. Photo: VTCNews
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Chinese vessel 44101 rammed the boat when the latter was fishing in the Da Loi (Discovery) Reef in Hoang Sa Islands which is about 198 nautical miles from Vietnam’s central city of Danang, at about 10:00 am Wednesday.
No other details of the Chinese vessel are available yet.
The boat QNg-90819, from the central province of Quang Ngai, sank with only its bow above the water, and the five fishermen on board were clinging on to it until rescue force arrived.
The committee called on the Vietnam Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination Center to coordinate with China to rescue them but no effort from Chinese side has been made.
The fishermen were eventually rescued by another Vietnamese fishing boat.
Chinese vessels have caused a series of ramming towards Vietnamese fishing boats which were totally in the Vietnamese waters. The violence rose when they attacked, destroyed, robbed fishing equipment and fishing products and shot at the fishermen over the past years.
The attack-and-run cases caused by Chinese vessels have taken place frequently in Vietnam’s Truong Sa (Spratly Islands) and Hoang Sa.
China forcibly seized the Paracel Islands from South Vietnam in 1974, and has illegally occupies them since then.
In 2012, it built the so-called “Sansha City” with Woody Island as its seat then built a runway capable of handling military aircraft and other supporting structures.
The so-called city also extends to a number of reefs in Vietnam’s Truong Sa that China seized by force in 1988 and the Scarborough Shoal claimed by the Philippines.
On May 1, 2014, China deployed an oil rig named Haiyang Shiyou 981 in the waters off Spratlys, changing the status quo in the waters. Days after that, Chinese ships chased after, fired water cannons and rammed many Vietnamese fishing vessels near the islands.
