T

he deaths of four Indonesian crew members with links to the same Chinese fishing vessel have raised concerns about the working conditions on the vessel and others like it.

The case entered the public eye after a video allegedly showing Chinese sailors throwing the body of a dead Indonesian crew member overboard went viral.

The footage was featured on a news segment aired by South Korea’s Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) on Tuesday.

The video shows what appears to be an orange body bag being thrown off a fishing vessel by a group of men. One man can be seen praying in front of the body bag moments before it is thrown overboard.

Two unidentified Indonesian sailors who worked aboard the vessel spoke to MBC about their experience, saying they had endured poor living conditions.

“We had to [work] for about 30 hours. We were given a meal break every six hours. We would just sit around during the breaks,” one of the sailors said.

The other sailor said they were made to drink filtered sea water during work, which eventually took a toll on their health.    

“We became nauseated. We could no longer drink [sea water]. There was one time when our throats became clogged with phlegm,” he said, adding that some of the crew members had experienced breathing difficulties.

In a press briefing on Thursday, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi confirmed that, over the past few months, four Indonesian sailors who had been registered to Chinese fishing vessel Long Xin 629 had died.

One of the sailors, identified only as EP, died at the Busan Medical Center in South Korea on April 27. Another sailor, identified as AR, died aboard Chinese fishing vessel Tian Yu 8 on March 30. Two other sailors died aboard Long Xin 629 in December 2019.

“On April 26, the Indonesian Embassy [in Seoul] was informed that a citizen with the initials EP was sick. When they contacted him, he said that he had long suffered from difficulty breathing and had coughed up blood,” Retno said.

“The Busan Medical Center said that he died from pneumonia.”

Retno said that, according to a statement from Tian Yu 8, AR had fallen ill on March 26 and was moved from Long Xin 629 to Tian Yu 8 to be taken to port for treatment. However, AR died before the ship reached port and was buried at sea on the morning of March 31.

“According to the embassy, the ship had informed AR’s family and received approval for a burial at sea on March 30,” she said.

The two sailors who died in December were said to have been buried at sea after dying of an infectious disease.

The advocacy group Migrant Care criticized the treatment of the Indonesian crew members aboard the Chinese vessels, saying the harsh work environment infringed upon their basic human rights.

“What these Indonesian crewmen experienced was a violation of their human rights. They were robbed of their freedom by working in an inappropriate environment. They were deprived of their right to information, and, ultimately, they were robbed of their right to live,” Migrant Care executive director Wahyu Susilo said in a statement, adding that the case was a form of modern slavery.

Retno said the Foreign Ministry had summoned Chinese Ambassador to Indonesia Xiao Qian on Thursday to express concerns about the alleged mistreatment of Indonesian workers aboard Chinese fishing vessels.

“In regard to the burial at sea for the three Indonesians, the Indonesian government has again demanded clarification about whether the burials followed the ILO [International Labor Organization] standards. The Indonesian government also expressed concerns about the poor living conditions on the ships that allegedly caused the death of the four Indonesian crew members,” the minister said.

She also demanded that Chinese authorities conduct an investigation on the working conditions aboard the fishing ships.

In his response, the Chinese ambassador assured Indonesian officials that his government would make sure the companies would be accountable to regulations and contracts.