SECURITY

SECURITY

EU NAVFOR Averts Possible Piracy Act

By George Sunguh

European Union's Navy Forces (EU NAVFOR) Somalia Operaon Atlanta recently conducted incident response procedures in response to a possible act of piracy off the Coast of Somalia. This was done with the support of a Japanese aircra of the Combined Marime Forces (CMF) and in close coordinaon with local authories in Somalia. The operaon dispelled fears that there could have been a re-emergence of piracy as highlighted by press reports that six armed men had hijacked the Panama-flagged Aegean II on Wednesday aer engine problems were reported. Quong, a regional governor in Somalia Mr. Musse Salah, the governor of Gardafu in the semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland, the report said the ship was travelling from the UAE to Mogadishu when pirates aacked it in the first successful hijacking since 2017. In a press release shared with African Shipping Review, by EU NAVFOR Somalia stated on August 18th, EU NAVFOR OHQ Joint Operaons Centre detected suspicious movements when Panama flagged MT “AEGIAN II”, a chemical/oil tanker with armed security guards on board in transit from Shajah (UAE) and bound for Mogadishu (Somalia) altered her course without any apparent reason. Expedious invesgaons conducted by a EU NAVFOR marime patrol aircra including radio contact, concluded that the vessel was having technical problems and the crew was safe. On August 20th, open sources reported that a vessel could have been hijacked in the same area. EU NAVFOR Somalia connected this informaon to the situaon of the MT “AEGEN II”, previously monitored, and ESPS Santa Maria was detached to invesgate and execute incident response procedures with the support of a CMF aircra.