The suffering of Tamil fishermen will now be felt in the South

Incursions by Indian trawlers into Sri Lankan waters have spread beyond the Northern Province to southern coastal areas including Puttalam, Kalpitiya and Chilaw, the Northern Province Fishermens Federation has warned, calling on the government to take decisive action to stop them.

N.M. Alam, the federations secretary, told a press conference in Mannar on Saturday that trawlers from Tamil Nadu were increasingly entering Sri Lankan waters and engaging in illegal and destructive fishing, an issue that had become a major crisis for fishermen in the North.

Protests by northern fishermen had previously helped to control the incursions to some extent, he said, but the situation had intensified significantly since the fishing ban ended in June. Even a major sea protest recently organised by fishermen from the islands appeared to have failed to draw adequate attention from either the Indian or Sri Lankan governments.

Destructive fishing practices are damaging marine resources and severely affecting the livelihoods of Sri Lankan fishermen, Alam said, with nets and equipment worth several million rupees damaged within a short period, leaving northern fishermen watching their livelihoods being destroyed.

"The suffering experienced by Tamil fishermen in the North will now be experienced by the Sinhala fishing communities in the South as well," he warned, questioning whether the government would finally take the issue seriously.

If the state continued what he described as an indifferent approach, Alam cautioned, the islands marine resources could eventually be destroyed beyond recovery, potentially forcing fishing communities to abandon the industry altogether.

New Delhi presses for releases

The federations demand for firmer enforcement runs directly counter to the case India has been making. Answering a question in the Indian parliament this week on arrests by the Sri Lankan Navy, the External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said 119 Indian fishermen had been arrested so far this year and 17 of their boats seized, following 526 arrests in 2025 and 317 in 2024.

Jaishankar said the Indian government attaches the highest priority to the safety, security and welfare of Indian fishermen, and has consistently raised these issues, including the early release and repatriation of fishermen and boats, with Colombo through bilateral mechanisms, diplomatic channels and high-level interactions.

"In all our interactions, it has been conveyed that this issue may be considered purely on humanitarian and livelihood grounds. In addition, all issues related to fishermen are also dealt with through bilateral institutional mechanisms such as the meetings of the Joint Working Group (JWG) on Fisheries, which includes representatives from the government of Tamil Nadu," he said.

Officials from the Indian mission and consulates in Sri Lanka make regular visits to local jails and detention centres to assess the condition of detained fishermen and provide legal assistance to secure their early release and repatriation, he added.

The same request was made in person days earlier, when Indias Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, visiting Colombo, asked for Sri Lankas cooperation in releasing detained Indian fishermen and boats, and urged that a humanitarian approach guided by their livelihood requirements continue while bilateral mechanisms work towards a resolution.

An unenforced ban

At the centre of the dispute is bottom trawling, in which heavy nets are dragged along the seabed, damaging coral beds and fish breeding grounds and depleting the stocks on which small-scale fishermen depend. The practice was outlawed in Sri Lankan waters under the 2017 Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Act, but fishing communities across the North-East say the ban has never been properly enforced. Fishing unions have also accused the navy of selective enforcement, acting swiftly against local fishermen over minor infractions while failing to deter foreign trawlers.

Fishermen from Delft, Pungudutivu, Nainathivu, Mandaitivu, Analaitivu and Eluvaitivu have staged repeated protests in recent weeks over destroyed nets, with one appealing directly to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay to halt the crossings.