Chinese personnel boarded a Vietnamese fishing boat off the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea and beat the crew with iron bars, seriously injuring four of them, after a chase by Chinese ships near the islands that both countries claim, a Vietnamese official said.
The boat’s skipper, Nguyen Thanh Bien, told the Tien Phong news site that his boat was chased on Sunday by two ships with hull numbers 101 and 301. He said they sent three smaller boats to trap his vessel in a pincer maneuver, enabling men in camouflage to climb aboard and attack the crew.
“I tried to run towards the bow of the ship. However, two people held me and attacked me so hard that I lost consciousness," he said. "I woke up about an hour later."
