A Chinese captain of a cargo ship and his crew have pled guilty to attempted murder after throwing two terrified Tanzanian stowaways into a shark-infested ocean over fears of catching the coronavirus from them.

The crew assembled a raft out of plywood, plastic drums and rope, and set the pair of stowaways overboard near South Africa, all with the skipper, Cui Rongli, watching, according to the Daily Mail.

WIth two bottles of water each and a life jacket, the stowaways, Amiri Salamu, 20 and Hassani Rajabu, 30, were instructed to make their way to land using their hands as paddles.

According to the two men, the crew feared they had coronavirus and decided to throw them out rather than heading back to port or quarantining them.  

The captain allegedly ordered the ship's engineer to bring the vessel to a halt before the terrified pair were put in a life raft, given some bottles of water and cast adrift.   

The ship then powered away, leaving the stowaways with no food and without sight of land at the mercy of the sea currents in one of the most shark-infested areas of the stormy North Coast.

Accoding to New York Post the two men were given no food on the flimsy raft, which was dumped near the mouth of the Tugela River where great whites, hammerheads, tiger and bull sharks are known to hunt, but mercifully washed up on the Zinkwazi Beach near Durban three days later.

This map shows where the ship was travelling when the two stowaways were discovered on board. They later washed up at Zinkwazi beach 

The two men told police that their ordeal ended after three days and two nights adrift, when they spotted lights on a tourist beach.  

They were washed ashore on Zinkwazi Beach, by the mouth of the Tugela River, where Great White Sharks, Hammerhead Sharks, Tiger sharks and Bull Sharks gather in huge numbers.

The predators shoal there in their hundreds feeding on whatever is washed down the region's largest river and anglers rate it as the best spot in South Africa to catch sharks.

Locals found the starving stowaways wading through the surf wearing life jackets and dragging the raft behind them, begging for food and water and help.

Paramedics and police raced to the scene near the town of Nkwazi where the shivering Tanzanians said the crew had set them adrift.

The two Tanzanian stowaways (on the left in the red and green overalls) are taken to an ambulance after their raft washed up at Zinkwazi Beach in South Africa 

The African Maritime Safety Agency impounded the MV Top Grace when it docked at Richards Bay and the captain was arrested.

Rongli, along with crewmembers Lin Xinyong, Zou Yongxian, Tan Yian, Xie Wenbin, Xu Kun and Mu Yong all pled guilty to attempted murder at Durban Magistrates Court on Friday.

Rongli was fined over $5,000 and crew members were fined $2,500 in a plea bargain.

“The accused … provided the men with life jackets and the crew acted in a threatening manner banging the vessel’s decks as they descended into the raft,” National Police Authority spokesperson Natasha Cara told the paper.

“The ship pulled away leaving them once they were aboard the raft. The accused admitted that their actions could have resulted in serious injury and even the loss of life.”

Defense lawyer Willie Lombard countered, “There were many mitigating factors and if the crew had wanted to be cruel they could have dropped them in the high seas much further out without life jackets.”

Source: The New York Post