FILE PHOTO: A China Coast Guard (CCG) ship fires its water cannon at Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) vessels escorting supply boats chartered by the Armed Forces of the Philippines in August 2023. On Tuesday, March 5, 2024, the CCG again water cannon-attacked Philippine vessels on a mission to bring supplies to troops in the grounded BRP Sierra Madre in the West Philippine Sea. VIDEOGRAB FROM PCG FACEBOOK PAGE
MANILA, Philippines — The China Coast Guard (CCG) again attacked using water cannon a Philippine vessel on a mission to bring supplies to troops in the grounded BRP Sierra Madre in the West Philippine Sea on Tuesday.
“Unaizah 4 was also hit by a water cannon,” Navy spokesperson Commodore Roy Vincent Trinidad said during Tuesday’s press briefing in Camp Aguinaldo.
Trinidad did not explain further, saying they are waiting for further information as the “rotation and reprovisioning operation” (Rore) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in the West Philippine Sea is still ongoing.
Earlier on Tuesday, Commodore Jay Tarriela, Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, reported on X (formerly Twitter) that PCG and CCG ships collided because “[t]hroughout the operation, the PCG vessels faced dangerous maneuvers and blocking from Chinese Coast Guard vessels and Chinese Maritime Militia.”
“Their reckless and illegal actions led to a collision between MRRV-4407 and China Coast Guard 21555 that resulted in minor structural damage to the PCG vessel,” he added.
The collision was the second such incident since December 2023, when Chinese ships blasted water cannon at Philippine boats.
China has claimed it owns almost the entire South China Sea, brushing aside competing claims from a host of Southeast Asian nations and an international ruling that declared their case baseless.