What if your country was swallowed by the sea? Kiribati (pop. 100,000) is one of the first countries that must confront the main existential dilemma of our time – imminent annihilation from sea-level rise. This documentary, Anote’s Ark, has been blamed by Kiribati immigration officials for their block on foreign journalists.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

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.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz