‘Families are starving’: Chinese trawlers’ overfishing is destroying lives, say Sierra Leoneans

As illegal industrial-scale fishing by foreign fleets pillages fish populations, despairing coastal communities feel powerless

Along Tombo's crumbling waterfront, dozens of hand-painted wooden boats are arriving in the blistering midday sun with the day's catch for the scrum of the market in one of Sierra Leone's largest fishing ports.

In a scrap of shade at the bustling dock, Joseph Fofana, a 36-year-old fisherman, is repairing a torn net. Fofana says he earns about 50,000 leone (3.30) for a brutal, 14-hour day at sea, crammed in with 20 men, all paying the owner for use of his vessel. This is the only job we can do," he says. It's not my choice. God carried me here. But we are suffering."