Spain Sending 100 New Troops to Fight Pirates
March 4th, 2010
Defence Minister, Carme Chacón, today announced that Spain will be sending a new patrol boat with 100 extra troops to the Indian Ocean, in an effort to strengthen surveillance of the ports in the area and help neutralize the ships used by Somalia pirates in their attacks on passing vessels.
Chacón made the announcement on her arrival at a special hearing in the European Parliament, where she also confirmed that an attack by pirates this morning on a Spanish boat had been successfully halted by the ship’s onboard security personnel. “Although we know that security efforts on board Spanish-flagged fishing vessels in the Indian Ocean are working, we are not satisfied with that,” said Chacon.
Chacon stated that the European Union have agreed to add a new function to ‘Operation Atalanta’, the EU’s measures to fight piracy in the area, in that it will also be responsible for the “supervision and control of any ports in which it is known that the pirate ships use and to try neutralize them in advance”. Chacón explained that these additional operations will be mainly developed in-between monsoon seasons, the time when most attacks take place.
To help with these new tasks, Spain will send a patrol ship to the area with 100 new troops, they will sail toward the Indian Ocean during the “first half of March.” This patrol ship will join the existing frigate and maritime patrol crafts which Spain already has working in the area of the Gulf of Aden.
The pirate attack thwarted this morning involved a tuna fishing boat from the shipping company Basque Albacore, it escaped a pirate attack about 350 miles off the coast of Kenya. In the attack there was a full blown shootout and the attackers also threw a grenade at the fishing boat, fortunately no-one was wounded.
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