The tragic death of Ghanaian fisheries observer Samuel Abayateye reverberated far beyond West Africa. After Mongabay broke the story in December 2023, international awareness of observer safety deepened, helping to push action from global regulatory bodies and advocates.
Mongabay reported that Abayateye went missing while working aboard the Ghana-flagged Marine 707, operated by a South Korean company. His last known communication was a phone call to his brother on Oct. 24, 2023 when he said he had been trying unsuccessfully to reach his supervisor to report an incident. The company reported Abayateye missing from the vessel a few days later.
Nearly six weeks later, a body washed ashore close to the coastal settlement of Anyamam that Abayateye’s family said closely resembled him. This led police to open an investigation, including a DNA test to confirm his identity – which, as of early 2024, Mongabay reported had still provided no answers – and now two years later, a follow-up story published on Oct. 29, 2025, reported that Abayateye’s family still hasn’t received any formal updates from the Ghanaian police or any other agency about what happened to him. This is despite their ongoing attempts to obtain the autopsy and DNA test results.
Abayateye’s death follows the 2019 disappearance at sea of another Ghanaian fisheries observer, Emmanuel Essien, from a Chinese-owned trawler, whose body was never found.
Observers like Essien and Abayateye play a crucial role in collecting fisheries data and ensuring compliance with regulations. Despite this, the incident highlighted observers’ great vulnerability at sea, and Nelson Atanga Ayamdoo, an expert with the nonprofit Centre for Maritime Law and Security Africa (CEMLAWS), was quoted about this in the original Mongabay report.
“A number of questions linger, and it is worth knowing the safety conditions under which observers work on vessels, and the key safety measures to avoid a repeat of the disappearance of a third observer,” he said.
Impact
Mongabay’s coverage brought new international attention to the issue of observer safety. Following its initial publication, The Association of Professional Observers contacted Mongabay to request help connecting with Abayateye’s bereaved family.
More than a year later, the reporting also helped shape policy, by inspiring action at the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). A key member of a government delegation informed Mongabay that the initial 2023 report about Abayateye motivated them to pursue a measure to strengthen protections for fisheries observers. This measure was passed at the ICCAT annual meeting that ended on Nov. 18, 2024, and is now in effect.
Then, film producer Terrence Crawford – representing the feature-length documentary “Fatal Watch” – requested permission to use clips from Mongabay’s video report about Abayateye, saying his team’s documentary aimed to highlight cases of missing fisheries observers internationally, as well as corruption in the tuna fishing industry, bringing this story and the wider issue to an even broader global audience.
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Banner image: Fishing trawler off the coast of Ghana. Image by Jeff Atherton/US Navy via Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0).