The Philippines is investigating the deaths of three Filipino fishermen after they were killed in a collision with a “foreign” vessel in the South China Sea, authorities in the country said on Wednesday.
Philippine fishing boat FFB Dearyn was struck at around 4:20 a.m. on Monday near Scarborough Shoal, according to the Philippine coast guard, citing a crew member.
He also asked that all parties “refrain from engaging in speculation” while the investigation is ongoing.
The South China Sea is a 1.3 million-square-mile waterway that’s vital to international trade, with an estimated third of global shipping worth trillions of dollars passing through each year.
The South China Sea is also a major maritime flashpoint.
Over the past two decades, China has occupied a number of obscure reefs and atolls far from its shoreline across the South China Sea, building up military installations, including runways and ports.
In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines in a landmark maritime dispute, which concluded that China has no legal basis to claim historic rights to the bulk of the South China Sea. »
