Guinea-Bissau: Fishermen turn to trafficking as fish profits drop
Bubaque: As the profits to be made from fishing diminish with rising fuel costs and poor management of the sector, fishermen are increasingly turning to drugs and people trafficking to boost their meagre incomes, fishermen in Bissau and the Bijagos islands told IRIN.
Fishing boats in Bissau harbour. Anna Jefferys/IRIN ©
“Fishermen get involved [in drug trafficking] because they can earn more money from illegal activities,” said Mody Ndiaye, special adviser at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Guinea-Bissau.
According to Ndiaye, large boats head from Latin America to the Bijagos islands, an archipelago of 90 islands 60km off the coast from the capital, where they divide up their large hauls into many smaller fishing boats which proceed along the coast to unload their cargo in the Gambia, Senegal and Guinea-Conakry.
Guinea-Bissau has increasingly become a transit hub for organised criminal networks trafficking drugs from Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil through West Africa to Europe.
