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Two men have been detained after they were involved in a mid-sea collision on Tuesday that resulted in a third person falling off a boat into the sea and going missing.
A child was also reportedly aboard the boat that collided with a Coastguard patrol vessel as the suspects tried to flee after being caught shrimping illegally on Tuesday, said a Public Prosecution statement yesterday.
The incident occurred when the Coastguard patrols were carrying out security duties in the Fasht Al Adham area.
A boat was detected engaging in catching shrimps using prohibited equipment. When officers tried to intercept the vessel, the crew tried to flee but ended up colliding with the patrol boat.
The suspects, whose ages and nationalities were not revealed, were operating their boat without navigation lights and fishing using banned bottom trawling nets.
They had also covered their vessel’s licence plate and had disabled the identification system.
When ordered to stop, the suspects tried to flee, at which point their boat veered toward the Coastguard vessel.
A collision occurred after the men cut the trawling ropes, causing their boat to lose balance, causing one of them to fall into the sea.
The prosecution statement added that only about an hour after their detention did the two men inform the officers that they had a child onboard and that a person had fallen into the sea during the chase.
The Coastguard immediately launched a search and rescue operation but the missing person has not been found yet.
During questioning, the two men confessed to failing to comply with law enforcement orders during inspection, using prohibited trawling nets, operating without navigation lights, concealing the boat’s licence plate and disabling the automatic identification system.
The Public Prosecution ordered the search for the missing person to continue, the detention of the two suspects, the release of the child and the seizure of the boat.
The Interior Ministry said on X yesterday that search and rescue operations were still ongoing.
Thanking citizens for their concern over the incident, the Coastguard, however, cautioned people against heeding calls to join the search operations.
The job should be left to the specialised teams, it said, adding that the Police Aviation personnel were helping in the operations.
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