China Coast Guard turns water cannon on Philippine medevac mission to Ayungin Shoal

A China Coast Guard ship switched on its water cannon and closed in on a Philippine Coast Guard vessel on Thursday, 8 October, as Manila tried to evacuate a sick Philippine Navy sailor from the BRP Sierra Madre, the military outpost grounded at Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal in the South China Sea, the Philippine Coast Guard said. The evacuation was completed, but the coast guard said Chinese obstruction delayed it by nearly ten hours.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines said earlier in the day that the sailor needed immediate medical attention because of a prior medical condition and had received initial treatment aboard. Rear Adm. Roy Vincent Trinidad, the military spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, said Western Command was monitoring the operation and that the armed forces were coordinating with the coast guard.

Water cannon at 400 yards

According to the coast guard account, the patrol vessel BRP Cabra sailed from Lawak Island and by about 7:30 am local time was roughly 9 nautical miles north of the shoal. China Coast Guard vessel 5306, which had been manoeuvring dangerously near the Philippine ship, then activated its water cannon and kept it running as it closed from about 1.3 nautical miles to roughly 400 yards, apparently to push BRP Cabra away. The Philippine vessel was not hit. It withdrew from the shoal for safety while keeping radio contact with the Chinese ship and with the Sierra Madre.

A planned meeting point about 2.5 nautical miles northeast of the outpost proved unreachable. The coast guard said continued blocking kept BRP Cabra about 13 nautical miles north of the shoal for several hours, and that CCG 5306 radio-challenged it again at 12:52 pm. The transfer was then moved to a safer point farther from the Sierra Madre, with the military and coast guard carrying it out under Philippine authority.

At 1:46 pm BRP Cabra launched a rigid-hull inflatable boat carrying coast guard crew, a maritime security team member and medical staff. The Chinese side launched its own inflatable within a minute, and the coast guard said it manoeuvred dangerously against the Philippine boat throughout the 9.2-nautical-mile run. Two rubber boats left the Sierra Madre, one of them carrying the patient, who was handed over at about 3:15 pm. On the return leg CCG 21585 shadowed the boat at about 500 yards and CCG 5306 at about 600 yards. The boat reached BRP Cabra shortly before 5 pm. The coast guard said the sailor was stable and being taken to the port of Buliluyan in Palawan.

Warship and militia in the area

The coast guard said it also tracked China Coast Guard vessels 5306, 5009 and 21585, the maritime militia vessel Qiongsanshayu 00119 and People's Liberation Army Navy warship 628 during the operation. It called the use of a water cannon against a humanitarian mission dangerous and unlawful, and said caring for personnel at the shoal, which lies inside the Philippine exclusive economic zone under the 2016 arbitral award, is a sovereign duty rather than a favour from a foreign power. Coast guard commandant Adm. Ronnie Gil Gavan urged the Chinese coast guard to respect medical evacuations in future and act in line with international law. The Philippine statements did not include any Chinese response.

The incident follows a sharp rise in Chinese deployments. Trinidad said on 6 October that Chinese coast guard and navy vessels monitored around four key features in the West Philippine Sea rose to 101 in September from 56 in August, including at least 14 coast guard ships and nine navy warships at Ayungin Shoal.

BRP Cabra has been targeted before. In December 2023 a Philippine task force said the vessel's mast was damaged after it was hit by the full force of a Chinese water cannon during a resupply mission to the shoal. The Sierra Madre, a Second World War-era vessel, was deliberately run aground at Ayungin in 1999.