A4 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, MARCH 7 , 2022
The World
INDONESIA
114 Rohingya refugees
flee Myanmar by boat
Over 100 Rohingya refugees
from Myanmar arrived by boat
on the shores of Indonesia’s Aceh
province in the early hours of
Sunday, a n ongovernmental
organization at the scene said.
Authorities were unsure how
long the 114 refugees, including
35 children, had been at sea, but
some needed medical assistance
when they arrived in Bireuen,
Aceh, Nurul Yana Daba, a
volunteer for the NGO Aksi
Cepat Tanggap, told reporters.
“ One female refugee got
swellings on her arms and legs
and is unable to stand or walk,
while one man, maybe because
they’ve been at sea for too long,
is a bit malnourished,” Nurul
said.
Mukhtar, a local resident, said
the Rohingya refugees walked
into his village to seek help.
“ They were asking for
protection. We w ill leave it to the
government. We a re taking them
in because it’s the humane thing
to do,” he said.
Alfian, a local official, said
villagers arranged food for the
refugees but did not expect they
would stay long at his village.In December, the Indonesian
navy rescued more than 100
Rohingya refugees who were
adrift on a sinking boat off the
western coast of Indonesia. After
initial resistance to let them
disembark, the authorities
relented and subsequently
bowed to international pressure
to give them refuge.
— ReutersYEMEN
Houthis to handle
dangerous oil tankerYemen’s Houthi movement
has signed an agreement withthe United Nations to deal with a
decaying oil tanker threatening
to spill 1.1 million barrels of
crude oil off the war-torn
country’s coast, a Houthi of ficial
said.
U.N. aid chief Martin Grif fiths
said last month that there was an
agreement in principle to shift
the oil from the tanker Safer to
another ship. He gave no
timeline. The Safer has been
stranded off Yemen’s Red Sea oil
terminal of Ras Issa for more
than six years, and U.N. officials
have warned it could spill four
times as much oil as the 1989
Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska.
“A memorandum ofunderstanding has been signed
with the United Nations for the
Safer tanker,” Mohammed Ali al-
Houthi, head of the Houthi
supreme revolutionary
committee, said in a Twitter post
late Saturday.
The Houthis, who are battling
Yemen’s internationally
recognized government, control
the area where the tanker is
moored and the national oil firm
that owns it.
— ReutersPalestinian killed by Israeli
police after stabbing: A 19-year-
old Palestinian stabbed and
wounded an Israeli police officerin Jerusalem’s Old City on
Sunday and was then killed
when officers opened fire, a
police spokesperson said. Two
officers were lightly wounded,
police said, one by the stabbing
and one during the police
gunfire. A photo distributed by
police showed a knife on the
ground beside a blood stain.
Later in the day, Israeli soldiers
shot a Palestinian who threw a
fire bomb at an army post
outside Jerusalem, said a
military spokesperson.
Palestinian officials identified
him as a 16-year-old who later
died of his wounds.
— From news servicesDIGEST
BY SAMANTHA SCHMIDT
ventanilla, peru — It’s peak
fishing season along Peru’s coast-
line, and on a day like this one,
Robert Roberto Merino Leon
would have set out before dawn to
the waters that sustained his fam-
ily for the last two decades.
With a basket strapped to his
back and the sun bearing down,
the 48-year-old father of two
would have trekked carefully
alon g the edge of the 600-foot
oceanside cliff here. He would
have studied the waves as he
approached the rocky shore, de-
termining exactly where and
when to cast his line.
But today he carried nothing.
As he looked over the cliff edge, he
lamented again the faint brown
stain, the foam drifting up to
shore as it poisoned Merino’s live-
lihood.
“The croaker is probably
there,” he said. “There’s move-
ment in the water.”
But it would be inedible. Meri-
no is one of at least 2,000 artisan-
al fishermen along this coastline
north of Lima who have been out
of work for more than a month
after an oil tanker sent thousands
of barrels of crude gushing into
the sea.
Described by Peruvian officials
as the country’s worst ecological
disaster in recent history, the Jan.
15 Repsol oil spill has spread to 24
beaches, contaminating an area
almost twice the size of Manhat-
tan. Beaches have been closed
since the spill, and fishing along
the affected shore has been pro-
hibited indefinitely. Seafood res-
taurants are empty. Local tourism
is at a s tandstill. And fishermen
such as Merino have had to con-
sider the possibility of finding
new work — or moving else-
where.
“I don ’t know what I could do,”
he said.
The oil flowed into the sea
while a tanker was unloading at
the La Pampilla refinery, not far
from here in Ventanilla. Repsol
initially blamed the spill on large
waves triggered by the eruption
of the Tonga volcano but now says
the spill was caused by unusual,
uncontrolled movements by the
tanker.
Critics have questioned the
condition of the refinery. The
investigative outlet OjoPúblico
last month published what it said
were photos of pipes at La Pam-
pilla that analysts say showed
corrosion. Repsol said in a state-
ment that the pipes were in “opti-
mal condition” and that the entire
terminal underwent mainte-
nance in December.
At first, the company said the
spill was less than seven gallons.
But two days after the spill, Peru-
vian environmental officials esti-
mated it at 6,000 barrels. The
government’s total is now 11,
barrels — nearly 500,000 gallons.
Repsol estimates the cost of
cleanup at $65 million.
While the spill is under investi-
gation, four Repsol executives
have been barred from leaving
Peru. Peru’s representative to the
Organization of American States
has formally denounced the com-
pany for the environmental and
economic damage to the Peruvian
coast.
Critics such as the Peruvian
Society for Environmental Law
accuse Repsol of poor planning, a
failure to quickly contain the spill
and a lack of transparency about
its causes. The company denies
wrongdoing.
“The causes of the accident
were out of our control,” Jaime
Fernández-Cuesta, executive di-
rector of Repsol Peru, told The
Washington Post. “Once the signs
of contamination appeared, we
got to work immediately.”
Fernández-Cuesta said the
company is “committed to help-
ing all of those affected ... and to
returning all of the coasts, the
beaches and the ocean to its natu-
ral state.” He accused the Peruvi-
an government of refusing to
work with the company in its
efforts, including by helping to
develop an accurate census of
people affected by the spill.
Environmental advocates say
the response from a government
beset by political chaos has been
similarly disorganized. President
Pedro Castillo, the first-time of-
ficeholder who has parried multi-
ple impeachment attempts since
his July inauguration, swore inhis fourth cabinet last month.
The oil spill has left at least 270
birds dead and hundreds more
coated in oil. They include threat-
ened species such as the Hum-
boldt penguin. Studies have yet to
determine the level of contamina-
tion in the seafood in the area.Repsol executives plan to fin-
ish their cleanup by late March,
but analysts say it could be
months or even years before the
fish in this area are safe to eat
again. Even then, the contami-
nants could have long-term im-
pacts on the reproductive pro-cesses of many species and weak-
en their immune systems.
“There could be more sickness,
more deaths,” said Yuri Hooker, a
local marine biologist who focus-
es on biodiversity. “With time, it
won’t be visible; no one can tell
that the contamination is there.
But by consuming these contami-
nants, we could also run the risk
of lowering our own defenses. ...
We still cannot know the magni-
tude.”
In the meantime, the oil spill
has upended an ancestral fishing
industry — and the lives of all
those who depend on it.
Peru is home to the world’s
largest fishery. The country’s
world-famous cuisine relies heav-
ily on seafood, and the fishing
industry generates an estimated
700,000 jobs. About $250 million
in seafood exports were sent to
the United States in 2020.
But the workers most affected
by the oil spill are not those
working for commercial fleets.
They’re artisanal fishermen who
learn the craft across generations.
They have the least protection
and are some of the hardest hit by
the impacts of climate change.
Many are older than 50 and have
limited options for work.
The fishermen can sue Repsol
in court for damages, but few can
afford lawyers. Because much of
their work is informal, many lack
the documentation to show lost
income.
“For us, it is a pride to be a
fisherman,” said Alejandro Bravo
Avalos, secretary general of the
Federation of the Integration and
Unification of Artisanal Fisher-
men of Peru. “The state did not
prepare me. I didn’t go to a
university, but I know how to do
wonders at sea ... We’re not capa-
ble of paralyzing the country’s
economy, but they also shouldn’t
abuse us. They should respect our
work.”Some fishermen have found
work cleaning the spill. Workers
could be seen on one beach on a
recent Sunday afternoon in gas
masks, full-body suits and hard
hats. Repsol said it had provided
financial stipends of 500 soles
every 15 days — around $132 — to
more than 3,500 people whose
livelihoods were affected by the
spill. But that was hardly enough
for families such as Merino’s, who
made that much money in three
days of fishing.
On Friday, the Peruvian gov-
ernment announced it had
reached an agreement with Rep-
sol in which the company com-
mitted to making advance pay-
ments of 3,000 soles, or about
$800, to the fishermen and mer-
chants affected by the spill. The
government said it estimated
2,2 92 fishermen and 2,014 mer-
chants were impacted across five
coastal districts.
Merino’s 18-year-old son spent
afternoons helping his dad fish in
the hope of saving money to apply
to chef school this year. But with
his family’s income dried up and
savings drained, the teenager
won ’t be able to afford the tuition
or the class materials.
The economic impacts have
reverberated beyond the fisher-
men to affect the entire chain of
jobs in these coastal communities
that depend on the sea.
About a half-hour drive up the
coast from Merino’s home in Ven-
tanilla, tourists from Lima would
frequent the beach town of Ancón
at this time of year. The docks
would be packed with people
selling fish, families eating at
seafood restaurants and tourists
waiting to head out on dozens of
small, colorful boats.
But on a recent Sunday, many
of the restaurants were empty, the
beaches were closed, and the
tourist boat trips were prohibit-
ed. There were no artisanal fish-
ermen selling their catch — the
only fish available was caught by
boats on the high sea, far from the
spill. And even that fish has de-
clined, dock workers say; some
boats are now landing only every
10 days or so, perhaps because
fishermen worry customers won’t
want to buy fish in Ancón in fear
of contamination.
Blanca Ramirez works hauling
crates of fish on the dock to be
measured and put into trucks.
“If there’s no fish, we don’t
make any money,” she said.
This is where Merino would
sell his catch each afternoon.
Then he would return to Venta-
nilla, where wooden homes stack
up along barren hillsides over the
ocean and murals urge communi-
ty members to “care for your
beaches.” A sandy road leads to
Merino’s small cement-floor
home, where one wall displays a
framed certificate showing that
his son passed his basic English
studies.
Merino came to Ventanilla in
2003 with his wife and then-5-
year-old daughter in the hope of
buying a home in an area much
more affordable than the out-
skirts of Lima. He would wake at
4 a.m. to take a bus to Lima to
work at a f actory making indus-
trial leather gloves and would
return home at 9 p .m.
Then a neighbor invited him to
go fishing with him, and he never
went back to the factory. Fishing
was dif ficult and sometimes dan-
gerous work, Merino said, show-
ing the blisters on his hands from
holding his ropes and nets. But he
was his own boss, and the money
he made depended on how much
he worked. In the open air, with
the sea in front of him as he
works, he said, “I feel more alive,
more free.”
He doesn’t know where to be-
gin finding other work. There are
few other jobs available to him in
Ventanilla. Would he fish in the
south of Peru, leaving his family
for 15 days at a t ime? Or would he
give up fishing altogether and try
to reinvent himself?
“I don ’t see how ,” he said. “At
my age, I don ’t see how .”Diana Durán contributed to this
report.An oil spill upends an
ancestral fishing tradition
Over a month after the d isaster, more than 2,000 in Peru are out of work
PHOTOS BY ANGELA PONCE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
TOP: Fishing boats off Ancón
are idle after an oil spill along
the Peruvian coast north of
Lima. AT LEFT: Oil pollutes
beaches in Ventanilla. BELOW:
Sebastian Merino, left, Robert
Roberto Merino Leon and
Rosario Rojas discuss the s pill
and its impact on fishermen.