Indonesia repatriated 166 Vietnamese fishermen to their home country this week after detaining them and confiscating their boats on suspicion of illegal fishing in Indonesian waters, government officials said Tuesday.
The fishermen departed for Vietnam on a flight from Batam Island on Monday, said an official with the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries.
“Repatriation of those who are not facing justice will continue to be carried out in stages,” Adm. Adin Nurawaluddin, the ministry’s director general of marine and fishery resources monitoring, said in a statement.
The flight follows a similar one in late September when 200 fishermen left Batam for Vietnam on a chartered flight arranged by the government in Hanoi. Adin said the Indonesian government had been working with the Vietnamese embassy in Jakarta to arrange repatriations.
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