On a blustery evening in August, in the port of Mahebourg in southeastern Mauritius, people gathered for the unveiling of an official plaque commemorating their efforts to clean up the coastal waters after a major oil spill from a Japanese cargo ship.
Five years earlier, the 984-foot MV Wakashio had smashed into the coral reef near the white sand beach of Pointe d’Esny. The former Mauritian government dismissed the warnings of local fisherfolk, leaving the wrecked vessel to slam against the reef in high winds. Twelve days later, on Aug. 6, 2020, the hull cracked, spewing 1,100 tons of toxic fuel into their beloved lagoon.
Speaking at the commemoration, Ashok Subron, a veteran trade unionist who co-founded the eco-socialist Resistance and Alternatives (ReA) party that had led the cleanup and was now in the new coalition government, hailed those who had scrambled to save the biodiverse waters with “their boats, their buckets and their hands.” Behind him, a banner decorated with multicolored hands read “Mersi Moris” — Creole for “Thank you, Mauritius.”
The biggest ecological disaster in the nation’s history had rallied people, with tens of thousands heeding ReA’s calls to get down to the waterfront in defiance of government orders. Organizing themselves in improvised production lines, they created 5 miles of artisanal booms — sausage-like net barriers stuffed full of cane leaves and plastic bottles — to be cast out to sea to absorb and contain the black slick.
The netting, the nylon thread, the truckloads of cane leaves, the food donations and the fuel needed for boats lent by local fishers were all given in the name of “Morisianism” (“Mauritianism”). It did not cost a cent. On a multicultural island traditionally divided by race and religion, people had come together as one to volunteer for the collective good. It felt at the time like the beginning of a new era.
But now, as the plaque reading “Mersi Moris” in bubble font was unveiled, the island seemed united by something else — a sense that closure might never come. Subron had called for proper compensation for ecological damage and for victims of the spill, announcing that the state was reviewing the results of a public inquiry carried out by a court of investigation that had been suppressed by the previous government, and that it was now mulling legal action against the Japanese companies linked to the ship. But not everyone was convinced.
“Compensation?” asked Juno Pierre, a 50-year-old fisher from the nearby village of Cite La Chaux, who’d been hanging at the back of the crowd with his friends. “Enn film sa!” — the promises were “a film,” pure fiction.
As twilight descended on the waterfront, his friend, Vincenzo Gai, 34, pointed over the choppy sea to the silhouette of Lighthouse Island. Before the oil spill, the lagoon had been jumping with fish, but now he had to sail farther into high seas and cast his nets wider over longer nights to catch fewer fish. Five years on, he and his fellow fishers felt forgotten. “We’re in debt now and we’re having to work harder to pay off our debts,” he said.
On the island, everyone refers to the disaster by the name of the ship: Wakashio. Mass protests were held in Mahebourg on Sept. 12, 2020, in which people called for a “Nouvo Moris” — a new Mauritius. A plaque commemorating the protest was installed by ReA in 2021, but was removed by local authorities the following year, allegedly under pressure from the increasingly autocratic government of then-Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth.
Wakashio had collided with a rising tide of public fury against Jugnauth’s rule. Cooped up during the COVID-19 outbreak, people were already fuming over allegations of mafioso dealings in the prime minister’s inner circle, a coterie known as “Lakwizzin” (“The Kitchen”). Jugnauth — who had inherited his position from his father, who served six terms as prime minister — refused to acknowledge his administration’s failure to take timely action in the critical 12 days after the crash.
“What did I do wrong?” he complained in a television interview.
“Bour li dehor!” the people responded in mass protests — “Get him out!”
Wakashio soon became a lightning rod for broader frustrations. Outrage over the spill morphed into a broader Gen-Z movement to bring down the system. Since independence in 1968, two families — the Jugnauths and the rival Ramgoolams — have dominated power in Mauritius, governing in a postcolonial compact with a handful of local oligarchs, mainly from the tiny Franco-Mauritian elite. The latter’s wealth, originating from compensation payments during the abolition of slavery, has been supplemented with luxury real estate projects catering to rich foreign investors.
Mauritians of all colors and faiths rallied against this nexus of entrenched privilege and neoliberal depredation that was supercharging historic inequalities. ReA spokesperson David Sauvage, who had kicked off the cleanup campaign on the night of the spill with a call to action on social media, summed up the mood in his address to the Mahebourg rally: “What do we do with a system that doesn’t respect democracy? What do we do with a system that destroys the environment? What do we do with a system that doesn’t respect women and children? What do we do with a system that exploits workers? What do we do with a system that doesn’t respect young people?”
“Bour li dehor!” the crowd roared — “Get it out!”
Jugnauth was ousted in the 2024 election, his Militant Socialist Movement wiped off the political map. And the youthful ReA party, set up in 2005, entered government for the first time in an uneasy coalition with the Mauritian Militant Movement (MMM) and the Labour Party led by Navin Ramgoolam, son of the “father of the nation” Seewoosagur Ramgoolam.
Navin Ramgoolam is now serving his fourth term as prime minister and ReA has just three seats in a parliament dominated by dynastic dinosaurs. It wasn’t the revolution envisaged in 2020, but it is a start. The group’s support for the coalition is contingent on a list of demands related to workers’ rights, environmental protection and the scrapping of a law requiring political candidates to declare their ethnic background.
Notably, having earlier collected the names of 1,762 people — fishers, restaurateurs, tourism operators and others — whose livelihoods had been damaged by the Wakashio oil spill, in preparation for a class action suit against the Japanese entities concerned, ReA had demanded legal reforms that would make group litigation possible. The Labour-led government appeared ready to get in on the action too, with its own, separate case. But with Japan actively courting tiny Mauritius since the spill as a gateway to Africa, the jury is out on whether the state will follow through.
In the battle for a “Nouvo Moris,” delivering justice for the victims of Wakashio will be a crucial litmus test.
The village of Cite La Chaux, located between Mahebourg and Pointe d’Esny, overlooks one of the prettiest views in the district of Grand Port, its crystalline lagoon fringed with mangrove forests, banyan and mango trees, with the misty outline of the rolling Bambous mountains in the distance.
Pierre, Gai and other fishers were taking shelter from the rain in a corrugated iron shed filled with old boat motors and bits of wood. The government had issued a weather alert forbidding fishing, but a few who lacked the permits that entitled them to a flat-rate government payment were ready to risk the 8-foot waves to bring in some cash.
The sea had not recovered from the spill, they said. Ruddy Aristide, 46, had earned a good living in the past, he and his crew earning around 1,000 to 1,500 rupees (roughly $22 to $33) each for an average haul. Now, the scarcity of fish meant that he sometimes struggled to cover the fuel cost.
“Before, we had food on the table,” Ruddy said. “Now we’re having to sell our food,” added his 22-year-old son, Rondy.
They mourned the spill’s impact on the precious coral reef ringing the lagoon — the “fishes’ house,” as they called it. Some species, like the spangled emperor, the yellowfin goatfish and the blacktip grouper, were less plentiful. And those that remained, like the shoemaker spinefoot, the goldlined seabream and the parrotfish, were smaller and less fatty. Fish also rotted quicker these days, meaning they had to lug boxes of ice to the sea.
The fishers had been on the front line of the cleanup effort, scooping up the oil with buckets and lending their boats for the booms. Unable to work for well over a year after the spill, in some cases up to two years, they received some government support, averaging 80,000 rupees (around $2,018 at the time) for the first eight months. When Wakashio’s insurer, the Japan P&I Club, finally coughed up in late 2021, they got 113,000 rupees each (around $2,600 at the time) — for an ecological catastrophe that had destroyed their livelihoods.
Around 12 fishers came in and out of the shed. Questions about whether anyone had signed up to the ReA-led class action were met with blank stares. ReA’s Sauvage later told New Lines that the previous government had got people to renounce future compensation claims against the Japanese companies in exchange for small amounts of money.
It was unclear whether the fishers had denied knowledge out of fear, confusion or both. Either way, the vibe in the shed was downbeat. Nobody had bought politicians’ talk of compensation. “They’re deceiving us,” Gai said.
Locked in their struggle, the tight-knit community had huddled together, lending each other boats and equipment when cash ran low after the spill. Had Wakashio created any divisions? “On the contrary, it made us closer,” said Charol Verdapanaiken, 34, the only woman in the group.
“It made us all discover the truth together,” Gai said.
The discredited Jugnauth government had claimed its motive for withholding the court of investigation report was to avoid prejudicing legal action. The report was finally published last September, five years after the crash, and it confirmed that the ship’s crew and the maritime authorities were to blame for the catastrophe.
The crew’s failings had already been revealed in 2021, when the captain and first officer were convicted of endangering safe navigation. On the night of the crash, they’d been celebrating a birthday, drifting into Mauritian waters to catch a Wi-Fi signal to call their families. The captain’s conversations with the chief officer and chief engineer focused on “catching mobile signals and drinking,” according to recordings from the voyage data recorder described in the report.
The blunders of the maritime authorities that led to the spill had been endlessly dissected on talk shows. The report confirmed that National Coast Guard staff not only failed to contact the Wakashio until 42 minutes after the crash but then went on to create false entries in logbooks to make it look like they’d been monitoring the ship. Instead of towing the ship away, the director of shipping had instructed salvors to fill a cargo hold with seawater to stabilize it as it pounded against the reef in the high winds. Twelve days later, the hull cracked under the strain.
There was no conclusive evidence as yet on the impact of the spill on the reef, the mangroves, the seagrass meadows and the 1,700 marine species said to be present in Mauritian waters, which was being studied by a government-led Integrated Environmental Monitoring Plan (IEMP) — a tentacular and rather slow-moving enterprise including British and Japanese state actors. Javed Iqbal Mosaheb, deputy director of the Mauritius Oceanography Institute, said that the impact of the spill was “a very sensitive issue” and that there was “no timeline as such” for the final report.
But the court of investigation’s report confirmed the fishers’ assessments, slapping a $2.5 billion price tag on 37 square miles of reef area, which had been destroyed both by the “crushing and grinding” of the hulking vessel against the coral and a resulting “plume of coral powder” that entered the lagoon, blocking sunlight and killing the reef and marine life.
The report also alluded to terrifying long-term effects, endorsing testimony from oceanographer Vassen Kauppaymuthoo on the accumulation of “permanent organic pollutants” in marine species and in humans that could increase risks of cancers and neurological disorders. The “slow poisoning” from the contaminated food chain would last long after the oil had gone.
The damage inflicted on this geographically remote island and its population is immense. For some, the failings of the Mauritian authorities in the disaster cast a cloud over the prospects of legal battles for compensation targeting shipowner Okiyo Maritime Corp, Okiyo’s parent company Nagashiki Shipping, charterer Mitsui O.S.K Lines and insurer Japan P&I Club.
Speaking in the swank offices of law firm Dentons in the coastal town of Grand Baie, top Mauritian lawyer Robin Mardemootoo, who is representing the 1,762 people recruited by ReA, said that papers were about to be served on the four Japanese defendants. The private suit had long been in limbo, owing to costly and complex procedures requiring papers to be translated into Japanese and served through government channels. He didn’t think the issue of Mauritian culpability would harm the case.
“Our case is: Who caused the problem?” he said. The complaint was focused on the Japanese defendants’ “gross, abusive, reckless, inhumane and criminal mismanagement of their fleet and crew.” The lawyer said he had obtained evidence from “ship captains” employed by the companies that their employment conditions were “miserable.” Two of the crew had been at sea for 12 months, according to the International Transport Workers’ Federation, exceeding an 11-month limit under the United Nations Maritime Labour Convention. And the ship would not have veered so close to shore had the crew been provided with satellite communication services.
With the shipowner, its parent company, the charterer and the insurer in the dock, it was unclear who would pick up the tab for the claimants’ loss of income, the destruction of their environment and the threat of serious illness. Claimants were seeking 3 million rupees each (around $66,000, making for a total claim of around $116 million).
“We’re suing everybody because there are a number of responsibilities,” Mardemootoo said. The Japanese companies can “sort it out” among themselves.
Experts believe shipowner Okiyo has primary responsibility for the crash under the so-called Bunkers Convention administered by the International Maritime Organization. The company is fighting an ongoing battle at the Mauritian Supreme Court to limit its liability to 719 million rupees. Shipping expert Alain Malherbe told New Lines that the case may have been lodged in the knowledge that Mauritius had not signed amendments to the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims in 1996 and 2016, meaning that its rights could be limited to the 1976 version of the international treaty, which caps damages at the value of 13 million special drawing rights (the foreign exchange reserve assets created by the International Monetary Fund), currently $18.5 million.
Charterer Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, one of the world’s largest shipping companies, with a history intertwined with the expansion of Imperial Japan, told Reuters in 2020 that it was not liable. But it has taken a keen interest in Mauritius since the spill, pledging $9.4 million to assist in the disaster’s aftermath, rolling out conservation and community projects as it developed a pioneering thermal energy project on the island and looked to “develop businesses.”
New Lines reached out to Okiyo Maritime Corp and Nagashiki Shipping for this article, but did not receive any response. Questions sent to Mitsui O.S.K. Lines were not answered.
In a bizarre twist, Jugnauth’s government had appointed Mitsui’s chairperson as its honorary consul to Japan in 2023, raising questions about potential conflicts of interest and the prospects of legal action. That chapter is now closed, with the new government opening a new embassy in Tokyo in August, putting the country on a more independent footing for any legal claims.
Appearing on the Mauritian Broadcasting Corporation, blue economy and fisheries minister and member of the Labour Party Arvin Boolell said the attorney general was scrutinizing the dossier with a view to launching the state’s civil claim and that the new embassy would enable the prime minister to press the matter. He said that the state, which had received 3,500 claims for compensation, had a “strong case,” since the environmental damage was “from here to eternity.”
Mardemootoo told New Lines that the government had not discussed its plans to sue the Japanese companies with him. He speculated that the Mauritian government might have asked Tokyo to talk to defendants to organize a payout, so that it could continue restoration work and take charge of settling claims. If that were the case, the lawyer said his 1,762 claimants could end up suing the Mauritian government, which would replace the Japanese defendants in court. If the government received “a cheque,” it would have been assuming responsibility, he said. “It doesn’t mean that we will withdraw our case.”
“In my opinion, Mauritius will do a deal,” said Sébastien Sauvage, brother of the ReA spokesperson and head of the nongovernmental organization Eco-Sud, which was bringing a separate case for ecological damage that had hit the same procedural roadblocks as the class action. He believed that a deal might allow companies like charterer Mitsui to make investments in the country in exchange for reparations to satisfy public demand.
“At the end of the day, I think this is a story about money,” he said.
Sitting in Cote Jasmin, a chic eatery in Port Louis located a stone’s throw from the parliament, David Sauvage and his fellow ReA spokesperson Stephan Gua said Wakashio was a moment of “crystallization,” offering a glimpse of the people’s power to change the system from the ground up. That event had set in motion a chain of events that led the marginal party into government, a decision to drive change from the inside that had come after two years of reflection. “It wasn’t just decided by text message,” said Sauvage, describing ReA as the “soul of the coalition” that had revived the hopes of the old-guard leftists disillusioned with the drift of their once-radical postindependence parties.
The odds were not exactly stacked in favor of the eco-socialist newbies. In his new role as minister of social security, social integration and national solidarity, co-founder Subron had recently been forced to swallow pension reforms that had sparked a new wave of protests. “An ambush,” said one government insider, describing how the former trade unionist had found out on the day it was announced to the Cabinet.
But while the battle for a “Nouvo Moris” had stumbled, Gua and Sauvage’s fighting talk indicated it was still very much on. Gua vowed that the party would “fight with all our means” to shift “the balance of power.” Sauvage said the small party had forced the government to “defend Mauritian interests,” and that it was now pushing for up to 4,000 people to receive compensation.
In Cite la Chaux, where people are living “hand to mouth” since the oil spill, the stakes are high. What if, asked Charol Verdapanaiken and others, the new government was giving people “false hope,” only to sell them out later? They’d once believed change was possible, but now they weren’t so sure.
“If anyone betrays the public interest, they will pay the consequences,” said Sauvage, his voice determined. “There’s another big player now: The people.”
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