Vessel from Vietnam goes down in South China Sea, search underway for 17 unaccounted crew members

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Rescuers are searching for 17 missing people on Sunday after a Vietnamese cargo ship carrying 62 people sank during stormy weather in the contested South China Sea, Vietnam’s foreign ministry said.

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Vietnamese authorities arrived at the scene after the vessel Khoi Nguyen 18 “sank while operating in bad weather conditions in the East Sea”, foreign ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said in a statement to AFP.

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Beijing claims the South China Sea, known as the East Sea in Vietnam, in nearly its entirety, despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.

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Vietnam, along with the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan, have competing claims to areas of the strategic waterway, including the Spratly Island chain, which are believed to sit on vast oil and gas resources.

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Hang said Vietnamese rescuers, with “the support of Chinese rescue forces, including ships and helicopters”, and other vessels in the area, rescued 45 of the 62 people, as of 12 noon (0500 GMT) on Sunday.

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Authorities and fishing vessels were “actively searching for the remaining people”, Hang added.

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The Khoi Nguyen 18 encountered trouble near Yongshu Reef, also known as Fiery Cross Reef, in the Spratly archipelago, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said.

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Fiery Cross Reef is controlled by Beijing but also claimed by Hanoi and Manila.

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A Chinese rescue vessel first spotted what was believed to be a distress signal from the endangered Vietnamese ship on Saturday evening, China’s state news agency Xinhua said on Sunday.

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Six Chinese vessels and a rescue helicopter as well as one Vietnamese vessel were conducting search and rescue operations in the area, according to Xinhua.

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The Khoi Nguyen 18 is a Vietnamese-registered cargo ship measuring just under 70 metres in length, according to the Marine Traffic monitoring website.

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In a separate incident on Friday, another Vietnamese vessel sank amid rough seas in the area of the Spratly Islands, with 33 fishermen rescued and three missing, Vietnamese state media said on Saturday.

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The fishing vessel encountered strong winds, took on water and sank on Friday morning, according to the state-run Tuoi Tre News site, with other fishing vessels in the area mobilised to aid the rescue.

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By around 9:00 pm on Friday, 33 fishermen had been rescued about 15 nautical miles west of the location of the sinking, Tuoi Tre said.

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They were brought to Da Tay, or West Reef, an atoll under Vietnamese control that is part of the Spratlys, for medical care and were in stable condition.

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The three missing fishermen were “clinging to plastic containers” and not wearing life jackets when they left the ship, the report said.

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More than 25 per cent of all global trade passed through the vital South China Sea in 2024, according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

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Its islands and reefs are coveted by China and Southeast Asian nations situated around the strategic sea.

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Beijing has expanded reefs it controls in the Spratlys, and set up air bases, naval facilities and other installations, including landing strips able to accommodate military planes.

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Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia have asserted their own claims in the area by stationing troops in the Spratlys and building airstrips there since the 1970s.

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AFP

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