The Philippines accused a Chinese vessel of ramming one of its boats causing it to sink, leaving the lives of the 22 on board the boat threatened. The fishermen who had been left stranded and endangered by the incident were saved by a Vietnamese fishing vessel at the sight of the crash in Recto bank near the Spratly Islands. Filipino Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said in the aftermath of the clash in June: “We condemn in the strongest terms the cowardly action of the Chinese fishing vessel and its crew for abandoning the Filipino crew."