Two Honduran citizens were detained in Nicaragua for allegedly carrying out illegal fishing in the waters of the Pacific Ocean, the Nicaraguan Army Naval Force reported this Monday.
The capture occurred on Sunday in Nicaraguan jurisdictional waters three nautical miles from Punta San José, municipality of El Viejo, Chinandega department, in northwest Nicaragua.
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According to the Naval Force of the Nicaraguan Army, the two Hondurans, named Nelson Allison Pacheco Gutiérrez, 41, and Ángel Gustavo Fernandez Ortíz, 25, “were carrying out illegal fishing aboard a Nicaraguan flag vessel named ‘Liseth ‘».
Those detained and the boat were handed over to the corresponding authorities, without specifying which ones.
The capture of Honduran and Salvadoran fishermen who fish outside the law occurs with some frequency in Nicaraguan waters of the Pacific Ocean because Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras share maritime borders, including those of the Gulf of Fonseca.
In October 2021, Nicaragua and Honduras signed a boundary treaty in the Pacific, including the Gulf of Fonseca that they share with El Salvador, the latter country absent from the signing.
El Salvador and Honduras have been disputing the sovereignty of Conejo Island in the Gulf of Fonseca, a rock measuring less than a square kilometer, for several years, although the latest controversies arose when the Honduran Army held an event and raised its flag.
The Gulf of Fonseca, shared by the three countries in the Pacific, has historically been a source of tensions, where El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua make territorial claims.