Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

A controversial climate change documentary showing at the Sundance Film Festival has been blamed for the Kiribati government blocking journalists from entering the country to report on the fatal sinking of a passenger ferry.

The MV Butiraoi broke in half and sank three weeks ago, with more than 90 people missing and presumed dead.

Newshub Pacific affairs correspondent Michael Morrah said his passport was confiscated when he and other Newshub staff landed in the country on Monday.

LISTEN:  NZ TV crew banned from reporting Kiribati ferry disaster – RNZ

They were told they were no longer to report on the sinking, because their reporting could impact on the country’s own investigation into the tragedy.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalists were also reportedly barred from travelling to Kiribati to report on the disaster.

According to Morrah, “the government’s recent hostility towards international press coverage appears to be rooted in the screening of a documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, Anote’s Ark.

“The country’s previous President, Anote Tong, was the subject of the film, which focused on climate change in Kiribati.

“In the doco, he spoke about why he had purchased land in Fiji and the serious and imminent threat of rising seas to the future of his people.  

“But his views don’t gel with the current President Taneti Mamau. In November Mamau said the idea of Kiribati sinking and becoming a deserted nation was ‘misleading and pessimistic’.” 

• Michael Morrah’s report from Kiribati on Pacific Media Watch
• ‘We prayed with them until they were dead’
• Anote’s Ark documentary trailer

By Barbara Dreaver, TVNZ’s Pacific correspondent

With 93 people still missing, the first reports of survival – and loss – are starting to emerge from the sunken ferry MV Butiraoi in Kiribati.

In the first interview with Radio Kiribati, one of only seven survivors Temake Ioane told how he had to watch his two children dying over several days.

Ioane said there were three explosions on the 17m catamaran and the third broke it in two.

LISTEN: Radio Kiribati Online

Many did not survive the sinking, but those who did managed to clamber on to three boats.

However, Ioane said the rubber boat was so overloaded it split in half, leaving only two small dinghies.

The father of two said he managed to get his two children on board one of them – along with more than 20 others who either were on board on clinging to the side.

Only seven survivors have been found and family members have attended a church service in Auckland.

Clinging to boat for 6 days
Speaking in I-Kiribati, Ioane, who himself was clinging to the side of the boat for six days, said the ones that floated alongside the boats were the first to die “we prayed with them until they died”.

It was on the sixth day, without food and water, that the old women and children on board the boat started to die.

The first was his three-year-old son Tauti Temwake and then his eight-year-old daughter Remwati. Others were delirious from lack of water and jumped off the dinghy thinking they were going to buy food, he said.

On the January 28, 10 days after the ferry set sail from the island of Nonouti, only seven survivors including Ioane were found by the NZ Air force P3 Orion.

Ioane said he last saw the other remaining dinghy with the captain on board and other survivors drifting towards land after the ferry sank.

They have not been found.

Barbara Dreaver is TVNZ’s 1 News Pacific correspondent. This article is republished with permission.

• Ten primary school children among 80+ missing on Kiribati ferry

By Barbara Dreaver, 1 NEWS Pacific Correspondent

In Kiribati, 88 people are now confirmed to have been on the sunken ferry MV Butiraoi – including ten primary school children.

Some of the seven survivors after being spotted by the New Zealand Air Force Orion and picked up by a fishing boat.

The boat sank a fortnight ago after leaving the island of Nonouti for the capital Tarawa.

Only seven survivors have been found so far on board a wooden dinghy and they are currently enroute to Tarawa on board the Kiribati patrol boat.

New Zealand, Australia and the US are continuing air searches in the central Pacific and six vessels are also involved – but hope of finding any further survivors is fading.

The Nonouti Island Council confirmed the number of passengers after visiting every village and family to work out who had boarded the ferry. Their list includes 13 high school students and 10 primary school children.

Week of prayer
In an address to the nation late yesterday President Taneti Maamau called for the nation to pull together in a week of remembrance and prayer.

“The government is with you the people of Nonouti including those who have been greatly affected by this incomparable incident and it will not run away from it but to humbly accept it and will try its very best to search for the remaining passengers,” he said.

He said so far only objects like wood and a gas cylinder have been found.

This TVNZ article is republished with permission.

• Other Kiribati stories

The owner and managing director of Rabaul Shipping will stand trial at the Kokopo National Court this week — four years after a Rabaul inter-island ferry sank off the Papua New Guinea coast killing almost 200 passengers.

Rabaul Shipping owner Peter Sharp and three other employees will stand trial on 171 counts of manslaughter and one count each for sending an unworthy vessel out to sea in 2012.

A Commission of Inquiry later found that the ship was grossly overloaded, unsafe and should never have been allowed to operate on its final voyage.

The sinking of the MV Rabaul Queen on February 2, 2012, killed at least 171 people which, included children and students who were on their way to start their academic year.

The trial is expected to last about two weeks.

• The Rabaul Queen disaster