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‘It’s a mystery for us’: the puzzling death at sea of a Tongan fisheries observer

On the morning of Monday 27 September, a crew member on board the Hsinlong 1 fishing vessel went to fetch his friend Arnold Latu for breakfast.

Latu, in his mid-30s, was the monitoring officer of the Chinese-owned, Fiji-flagged vessel, employed by the Tongan government to check that the amount of fish caught on its three-week voyage was legal and correctly recorded.

The Hsinlong 1 had almost completed its work and was berthed close to Pangaimotu Island, off the shores of Nuku’alofa, awaiting the OK from local authorities to berth at the Tuimatamoana fishing wharf.

“We were just about to have breakfast and get ready for the vessel to go in to the wharf to berth and one of the crew members had gone to call Latu to come and have breakfast,” said a senior crew member onboard the vessel at the time, who did not wish to be named.

“The crew member shouted to us that Latu was not responding to his calls and was lying on his bed. We went in and touched his body which was already cold. We were shocked and did not know what to do.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/04/its-a-mystery-for-us-the-puzzling-death-at-sea-of-a-tongan-fisheries-observer