EU mission against piracy and trafficking in Somalia led by Portugal until December
In the 41st rotation of Operation Atalanta, which ended on December 2, the six soldiers of the Portuguese Navy were involved, including Commodore Marcelo Correia, who took command of the mission this Thursday.
In total, the force is made up of 18 soldiers of eight nationalities: Portugal, Spain, Italy, Serbia and Monte Negro, Republic of Korea, Colombia and Djibouti, “the latter three being the result of bilateral agreements with the European Union”, he said. Commodore Marcelo Correia.
In statements to the Lusa agency, the “Atalanta operation has as its main objectives the deterrence, prevention and repression in the region of Aden pirate acts and in the Somali Golf Basin as well”, for the increase of maritime security in the region through tasks monitoring drug trafficking, weapons, fishing, both unreported and regulated, and illicit trade in non-coal”.
Since February, he added, “there is also the possibility of carrying out operations to combat narcotics and seizing around 12 tons of narcotics since March 2012.”
“No piracy measures have been recorded since 2019, and this is a sign of the region of the ATALANTA operation, of the other protection measures adopted by merchant shipping”, he evaluated.
Another of the objectives of the EU mission is the protection of the `World Food Program` ships [Programa Alimentar Mundial]a United Nations humanitarian aid organization, founded in 1961 and financed through voluntary contributions from institutions, institutions in defense of or individual citizens.
“The protection of ships can be done by the WFP, the evaluation of ships, done according to the safety of each ship. For this purpose, it can be done the measurement of the three movements of the ship, an escort of ships or boarding of a team that can integrate the operation for this purpose”, he detailed.
Asked about the main difficulties he anticipates in the coming months on the high seas, the commodore refers to the size of the area, “which often represents the area of EU countries”, the covid-19 pandemic, “requiring permanent measures to mitigate the risk” of contagion” or “volatility and the feeling of lack of security in the region, resulting from the situation in Somalia and food” that “could promote or re-emerge acts of piracy”.
The military also highlighted “the potential impact that the expansion in Ukraine will have, especially with the possible increase in maritime traffic in the region”, that a “false perception of the total eradication of the piracy war could lead to the alert of the adoption of protection measures by the of merchant shipping, increasing its vulnerability”.
Currently, the force consists of the Spanish frigate `Numancia`, flagship, the Italian frigate `Fasan` and an air detachment with a Spanish navigation aircraft that operates from Djibouti, said the Portuguese commodore, adding that “in At the end of this month, a special operations task force will be joined in force.”