Five days after being separated in the Atlantic Ocean, two fishermen named Antonio Sabino and Osorio Pires from Neves in the SaôTom and Principe were found on Sunday in Brass Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, Southern Nigeria.
The Portuguese-speaking fishermen were allegedly saved by a trawler operating in the Gulf of Guinea and given to an Okpoama-Brass fisherman, who transported them to land.
The Sao Tomeans were then driven to the Okpoama Divisional Police Headquarters, welcomed by the official in charge, Chief Superintendent of Police Ebimiesigha Bebetu.
The fisherman seemed undernourished, but Munalayefa William-Sinte, the head of the Okpoama Kingdom Security Committee, stated that before being turned over to the police, they had been fed and dressed.
He said that while the fishermen showed signs of fear, they were given assurances of their safety in sign language before being imprisoned by the police.
A fisherman from Ilaje in Ondo State who lived in Okpoama, according to William-Sinte, has been gone for more than a week, and his colleagues have been combing the water for him for days.
The two fishermen from Sao Tome and Principe were saved on July 2, 2023, some 50 nautical miles off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, according to the Bayelsa State Police Command.
Asinim Butswat, the command’s spokeswoman, stated that the Divisional Police Officer, Okpoama Division, had taken control of them.
It said, “The two fishermen from Neves in SaôTom and Principe, Antonio Sabino’m’ 52 and Osorio Pires’m’ 41, went stranded in the Atlantic Ocean for five days before being rescued by the captain of a fishing vessel.
The police are working diligently to reunite the missing person with their family after contacting a coastguard officer from Saô Tom and Principe.
Recall that in 2019, two male fishermen’s rotting remains were discovered in a fishing boat that had washed ashore in Okpoama from Sa Tom and Principe.
