He called out for help.
A fishing boat probably from Sri Lanka with 44 people on board entered French waters off Reunion Island overnight from Friday to Saturday.
Three women and two children are among the passengers, whose nationality has not been indicated at this stage, the prefecture said.
An important device has been deployed to take care of passengers on their arrival, said the prefecture.
The Réunion 1ere channel specifies that everyone would be in good health.
The ship is registered “Imula” like all fishing boats from Sri Lanka.
Escorted to the port of Pointe des Galets (west of the island) by the gendarmerie and the National Society for Sea Rescue (SNSM), he must dock there in the afternoon.
16m long, the fishing boat was spotted for the first time on Monday, when it was a thousand kilometers from the French island in the Indian Ocean, said a source close to the services of the State.
Three ships with 69 migrants since the beginning of the year
The boat then cut off its transponder, an automatic receiver-transmitter allowing it to be located, which only started to transmit again near the Reunion coast.
Since the beginning of this year, three ships, with on board migrants from Sri Lanka, have already docked in Reunion.
Of a total of 69 people, 58 were allowed to stay on the island.
Between March 2018 and April 2019, six boats and 273 people from Sri Lanka, in the grip of a serious economic crisis, arrived in Reunion.
All had requested asylum in France.
A few dozen are still on the island, the others have been deported to Sri Lanka.