Four Vietnamese sailors who jumped off a Taiwanese fishing boat, the Hsieh Ta, off of Tahiti and were rescued on August 8 have described life on the boat as ‘hell’. The sailors are Hoang Van Hau, Le Dinh Anh, Nguyen Van Hung and Tran Van Dung, all natives of the central province of Nghe An. They were rescued by Tahiti authorities off the coast of French Polynesia. They are scheduled to fly from Papeete, Tahiti, to Tokyo before continuing on to Vietnam.   Two of the sailors were provided to the boat by the Tourist, Trade and Labour Export JSC (TTLC) under the Vietnam Motors Industry Corporation (Vinamotor), and the others were sent by two other Vietnamese companies. A representative of TTLC-Vinamotor arrived in Papeete on August 12 to visit the workers, who were staying at a hotel on the island, and help them carry out procedures to return home.  After being rescued last Thursday, they talked with investigators about their life on the boat through an interpreter, a Vietnamese-Frenchman named  Jean-Pierre Lebrun. Lebrun is an English teacher at Samuel Raapot on Tahiti.Tuoi Tre talked with Lebrun over the phone, and he said that after the Papeete Maritime Rescue Coordination Center rescued the four sailors, it called him to come act as an interpreter between authorities and the men.No income, no day-off, being beaten During questioning by the Tahiti Police Aux Frontiers (PAF), the sailors said that they knew Tahiti was the only stop during the boat’s journey, so when they saw the island, about 800 meters from the vessel, they decided to jump overboard. When asked why they wanted to jump out of the vessel, they said they had no choice but to risk their life to put an end to the terrible days of living on the boat. They said they had been forced to work 18 hours per day and never got a day off.  They were often beaten by their employers for making mistakes while working. The men are not professional fishermen, and sometimes they were beaten for no apparent reason.

Since there were no beds for them, they had to sleep on cardboard. The sailors also said they had not received any money, since their boss said that their salary “will be used to pay for air tickets for them to return to Vietnam.” By the time they were rescued, the four sailors had spent seven months and 19 days working and living on the boat, a period during they said they were treated as ‘modern slaves.’