Accidental death and destruction in artisanal canoes: a retrospective study of the years 1989-1991 along the coast of Guinea (Conakry) West Africa
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Fishing is well known to be a dangerous occupation, but little hard information has been gathered on the hazards of the artisanal canoe sector in West Africa. This report presents the results of a retrospective sea safety survey in Guinea, which covered the years 1989 - 1991. The investigation, commissiormed by the Guinean national working group on artisanal safety at sea and executed with technical assistance from IDAF, used a specially adapted accident case study questionnaire to gather info rmation for the relevant period from over 80 % of the marine artisanal sector in Guinea.At a national level, 225 major canoe accidents were documented in the study, revealing a three year death toll of 110 persons, 68 reported injuries, and equipment losses corresponding to US $ 285,000. For reasons explained in the text, the number of death is thought to be considerably under reported. The fatalities are about evenly divided between fishing boats and transport canoes. The calculated death rat e, all types of canoes combined, corresponds to 0,5 % of the 6894 registered fishermen dying each year in accidents at sea.Suggestions are presented with respect to national authorities undertaking similar analyses of their artisanal sea safety situation on an annual basis.