He was sent to sea to watch others. To count the fish, record their fate, and make sure no one took more than they should. The job was meant to be routine: clipboard, samples, and a small bunk on a ship. Instead, it was perilous. Two years ago, somewhere off Ghana’s coast, the watcher disappeared. He was last seen aboard the Marine 707, a Ghana-flagged tuna vessel owned by World Marine Company Ltd. The crew said he had been there the night before, sleeping upright in a chair. In the morning he was gone. Six weeks later, a body missing its head, forearms, and feet washed ashore near Anyamam, his home village. The family recognized the shirt and a scar on the chest. The police took the body and promised a DNA test. Since then, they have said nothing. The watcher’s name was Samuel Abayateye, 38, a father of two. He was a fisheries observer, one of a small group of civilians assigned by Ghana’s Fisheries Commission to monitor industrial vessels at sea. They are meant to serve as the state’s eyes. The work is isolated and often tense. Observers live among the crews they are meant to report on, sometimes for weeks. The greater danger is not the sea itself, but what happens when an observer witnesses something he should not ignore. His brother, Yohane Abayateye, told Mongabay contributor Awudu Salami Sulemana Yoda that the family has received no formal updates from the police or any other agency. The results…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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