In a seven-minute long video, unarmed men are fired at from ships that surround their wooden boat. "Shoot, shoot, shoot" says a voice heard on a loudspeaker; "As the ships' engines idle loudly, at least 40 rounds are fired as the unarmed men are methodically picked off", reports
The New York Times in a new investigative series titled "Outlaw Ocean".
The report says that the video was discovered after it was posted on the internet, and that the flipped-over fishing boat appeared to belong to Taiwan, whose officials describe the slaughter as a "failed pirate attack", a claim that experts aren't buying entirely.
"Despite the world economy depending on millions of fishing and cargo vessels and 100,000 large commercial ships, maritime law enforcement is barely better than centuries ago", says a report on
Digital Journal.com.
As a result, the report says, "Sailors defend their ships as if they were medieval castles while pirates try to penetrate defense."