...coast of Guinea
BissauThe only ice factory on Bubaque, an island in west Africa’s Guinea-Bissau, is out of service. Local fishers, such as Pedro Luis Pereira, are forced to source ice from factories on the mainland, about 70km away – a six-hour round trip by boat.
“The machines have been broken for months,” Pereira says, as he pulls in his nets on the shore of the island inside the protected Bijagós archipelago. “We’ve alerted the ministry of fisheries, but so far, no one has come to fix them.”
Wooden canoes are the only fishing boats allowed among the cluster of 88 islands that make up the archipelago. Its shallow waters are a rich breeding ground for silver flat sardinella, which Pereira, racing the tropical heat, sells fresh for 250 CFA francs (£0.33) a kilo at the market in Bissau, the capital of this tiny west African republic.
The tides dictate when fishers can navigate the shallow waters of the archipelago. Its sandbars are a nursery for countless species, leading some scientists to refer to it as “the Galápagos of west Africa” for its populations of endangered turtles and manatees. It is also why the area has been designated as protected from everything but small-scale fishing.
Like Pereira, many of these creatures in this area rely on sardinella, a small oily fish. It is a vital food source for migratory birds such as terns that winter in Bijagós in their tens of thousands, as well as for barracudas and jacks, and whales and dolphins further out to sea.
But the shoals of this pelagic fish draw another, more voracious predator: industrial boats fishing the boundary of the marine protected area, which in theory they cannot enter.
Among the vessels circulating here in 2025 was the Hua Xin 17. At 125 metres, it is longer than a football field. It is listed as a cargo ship in maritime databases, but a new investigation by the Guardian and DeSmog can reveal that the Chinese-owned boat is in fact a floating factory that turns fresh sardinella into fishmeal and oil by the tonne.
Eyewitness accounts, exclusive video footage and satellite records show that a group of Turkish boats that supply the Hua Xin 17 appear to have routinely fished sardinella illegally inside Bijagós.
