Fishermen at Kirinda fishery harbour pushed past closed gates and occupied the harbour premises on Monday morning in protest at years of official inaction over sand silting up the harbour entrance, threatening a fast unto death if the channel is not cleared within 10 days.
Harbour access gates had been shut to keep the protesters out. Amid what Hiru News described as a tense situation, the fishermen opened the gates themselves and entered, the outlet’s correspondent reported.
At about 9.30 am, the harbour manager telephoned the authority’s chairman from the scene and put him on to the gathered crowd. Speaking by mobile phone, the chairman told the fishermen that sand removal at the harbour entrance would begin within the next 10 days.
The protesters said that if the problem is not resolved within those 10 days as promised, they will launch a fast unto death.
Why silting matters
A silted entrance channel is not a cosmetic problem. Sand accumulating at a harbour mouth reduces the draught available to craft moving in and out, and can strand boats inside the basin or force them to wait on the tide — directly cutting the days a fisherman can work. Kirinda, on the southeastern coast in the Hambantota district, serves a multi-day and inshore fleet.
The community says it has petitioned the authorities over the blockage for years without a workable remedy.
The sand at Kirinda has a legal history
Sand at this particular harbour has been the subject of a corruption prosecution. Former fisheries minister Rajitha Senaratne was indicted in August on five charges under the Bribery Act over the 2012 leasing of the state-owned vessel Weligowwa to a Korean company — a firm that, according to the charges, had been selected to remove sand from Kirinda Fisheries Harbour for sale on the market.
That case concerns the handling of a removal contract more than a decade ago; the fishermen’s protest concerns the sand that is there now. Whether the two are connected is not addressed in the reporting, but the case is a measure of how long the channel at Kirinda has been an unresolved problem. See our earlier report on the indictment.
An open question on who is responsible
Hiru News identifies the official who took the call as the Ports Authority chairman. Sri Lanka’s fishery harbours, including Kirinda, are operated by the Ceylon Fisheries Harbour Corporation, a separate body under the fisheries ministry, and it was that corporation’s chairman named in the 2012 case. No other verified outlet has yet reported the protest, so we have not been able to confirm which authority gave the 10-day undertaking.
Not reported
The report does not give the number of protesters, the last time the entrance was dredged, or any estimate of how many boats are currently unable to operate. No fisheries ministry official is quoted.
