A British Greenpeace activist was transferred to Mater Dei Hospital yesterday where he was to undergo surgery after he was harpooned through the leg by fishermen on a French boat. The man was trying to free tuna from a commercial fishing net in the Mediterranean, the environmental group said.
The fishing boat, the Jean-Marie Christian VI, was one of several French tuna vessels in the area when the attack occurred in international waters near Malta.
"In a non-violent action, Greenpeace activists in zodiac boats attempted to lower the side of a purse seine net with sand bags to free the fish," said Isabelle Philippe of Greenpeace France.
"At that moment, fishermen violently attacked the activists, harpooning one of them through the leg," she told AFP by phone.
"His life is not threatened, but he is in serious condition," Ms Philippe said.
Some of the fishermen also fired flare guns at a Greenpeace helicopter hovering overhead to monitor, she said.
The organisation said that at around 2 p.m. activists from its ships Rainbow Warrior and the Arctic Sunrise launched high speed inflatable boats in an attempt to submerge one side of a purse seine fishing net to free the trapped tuna.
Two of the seven Greenpeace inflatable boats were slashed with knives and sank when run over by seining vessels.
"Greenpeace is shutting down this fishing operation to protect our oceans and the future of the bluefin tuna. We are taking action where politicians and fisheries managers have not," Greenpeace international oceans campaigner Oliver Knowles said.
"Many, including Greenpeace have warned for years that without urgent action, the bluefin will disappear," he added.
About 100 fishing vessels navigate the Mediterranean during a tuna fishing season that lasts from mid-May to mid-June.
Many of the boats carry net cages used to encircle tuna swarms, which are then towed offshore to be fattened and shipped in giant freezer ships to Japan, where it is a mainstay of sushi and sashimi.
Greenpeace will continue to take action at sea throughout the rest of the tuna fishing season which ends on June 15. It is demanding that the region's bluefin fishery be closed immediately to allow the species time to recover from decades of overfishing.
Greenpeace is demanding that the bluefin quota for the Mediterranean Sea be set to zero and that fishing operations targeting the species end immediately.
Earlier this year the European Union and the US backed an international trade ban on tuna fished from these waters, but Japan lobbied successfully and the proposal was defeated.
Additional reporting by AFP