North Korea's 'ghost ships' linked to illegal fishing by China fleet, study finds

Almost 600 North Korean ghost ships' have washed up on the coast of Japan in the past five years, some containing the corpses of their crew

Dark fleets" of hundreds of Chinese vessels are fishing illegally in North Korean waters, according to a study, forcing displaced local fishermen to risk their lives in distant waters in unsafe boats, many of which are carried across rough seas to the coast of Japan.

In a report published on Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, Global Fishing Watch (GFW), says more than 900 vessels of Chinese origin fished illegally in the area in 2017, and 700 in 2018. Together it is estimated they caught more than 160,000 metric tonnes of squid, worth more than $440m (346m).