Three Chinese fishermen killed in confrontation with South Korea coastguard

SEOUL Three Chinese fishermen were killed on Thursday in a fire that broke out on their boat when South Korean coastguard men trying to apprehend them for illegal fishing threw flash grenades into a room they were hiding in, a South Korean official said.


The three men were believed to have suffocated, a coastguard official in the South Korean port city of Mokpo said, adding that the incident was being investigated.


Disputes over illegal fishing are an irritant in relations between China and U.S. ally South Korea, even as their economic relations grow close. They also share concern about North Korea's nuclear weapon and missile programs.


The fire broke out in the boat's steering room, said the official, who is not authorized to speak with media and declined to be identified, told Reuters by telephone.


A Chinese embassy official in Seoul could not be reached for comment and China's foreign ministry in Beijing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


South Korean authorities were questioning the 14 surviving crew and coastguard members involved in the operation, the official added.


South Korean coastguard vessels regularly chase Chinese boats for fishing illegally and violent confrontations have occurred in the past.


The Chinese boat, caught fishing in waters off the southwest of the peninsula, about 70 km (43 miles) southwest of Hondo Island, would be brought in to a South Korean port later on Friday, the official said.


In June, South Korea and the United Nations Command, which overseas the Korean War armistice, launched a joint operation to keep Chinese fishing vessels from operating illegally off South Korea's west coast.


That came after South Korean fishermen, frustrated with incursions by Chinese boats in defiance of coastguard warnings, impounded two Chinese trawlers and handed them over to authorities.


(Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Tony Munroe, Robert Birsel)

Next In World News




Philippines leader likens himself to Hitler, wants to kill millions of drug users


MANILA Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte appeared to liken himself to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on Friday and said he would "be happy" to exterminate three million drug users and peddlers in the country.




After military raid, India looks at more ways to pressure Pakistan


NEW DELHI Beyond Thursday's raid by Indian special forces into Pakistan's side of divided Kashmir, New Delhi is considering new economic and diplomatic measures to bring pressure to bear on its neighbor, Indian officials said.




Former party boss of China's Guangzhou jailed for life for graft


BEIJING A Chinese court jailed the former Communist Party boss of the southern city of Guangzhou for life on Friday after finding him guilty of corruption, the latest official to fall in President Xi Jinping's sweeping war on graft.

From Around the Web Promoted by Taboola