DYNAMITE FISHING TAKES A HIT AS EXPLOSIVES CACHE NABBED BY SECURITY FORCES
(Posted 13th January 2015)
News are emerging from Tanzania that two days ago a major cache of explosives was found loaded on a bus destined from Arusha to Dar es Salaam. A routine police control at a check point near Korogwe arrested the vehicle, driver and held passengers for interrogation, after they discovered the contraband hidden in a compartment in the bus of the Kilimanjaro Express Bus Company, reportedly after receiving a tip off.
Three boxes, containing nearly 500 explosive charges, were discovered and several suspects are helping the Tanzanian police and other security organs in their investigations now.
While the mainstream media in Tanzania related the seizure to terrorism activities, and indeed there were a number of grenade attacks in particular in Arusha over the past year and a half, not one has connected the dots to the hugely destructive dynamite or explosives fishing, which is presently killing off the reefs along stretches of the Tanzania coast. The explosives according to information received were bearing inscriptions like ‘water jelly explosives’ which could be indicative of the intended use at the coast by unscrupulous syndicates for killing fish.
The explosives also seem to bear a resemblance, according to added information received, of similar devices (Explogel V6) seized lasts year in connection with such illegal fishing inside the Coelacanth Marine National Park, at which occasion several individual sustained serious injuries when they mishandled the explosive charges.
Whichever the intended use was, thanks must go to the Tanzanian security organs and the whistleblower who tipped the police off, as it has taken a major amount of illegal explosive off the market, to be used, as this correspondent suspects, in a fresh wave of dynamite fishing or, as the Tanzanian media seem to be set on, to prevent future terror attacks. Watch this space.
