Pirates scour the area. French tuna boats on alert. 6 pirates recovered (upd5)
(BRUSSELS2) Several French tuna boats were involved, this Friday, in the Indian Ocean, in a fight against pirates in search of prey after the failure on the Spanish fishing boat and on the national navy oceanographic vessel.
According to the General Staff, the Talenduic would have been attacked by 2 pirate skiffs and a mother ship, while blocked by its nets. THE TOrre Giulia (*) and the Trevignon would come to their aid. According to Atalanta HQ, this is the Julia Tower who was attacked and the Trevignon and Talenduic would have come to his aid. Either way, the crews on board fired warning shots to ward off the pirates. And the ships carried out the usual maneuvers.
In the maneuver, a tuna boat struck the pirates' mother ship which sank; one of the pirate skiffs also capsized on a wave, no doubt created by one of the tuna boats (the "code" of "good practice" in the fight against piracy recommends, in fact, creating waves in order to keep pirate ships away) . Of the six people on board, 4 were recovered immediately by the French fishermen, but two had disappeared. Eventually, they were spotted by an Atalanta maritime patrol aircraft (the Spanish P3 orion) and picked up by the Julia Tower. They are under guard of the on-board protection teams, it is specified to the General Staff of the armies. As there is flagrante delicto, these pirates could be handed over to the Seychelles authorities where the boats are based. THE Julia Tower is thus heading towards the Seychelles according to my colleagues from Ouest-France in Concarneau who contacted one of the fishing bosses by telephone.
The six apprehended are therefore added to the 22 other pirates apprehended by the Nivose, information confirmed by Atalanta HQ. This is the first time, to my knowledge, that "civilian" tuna boats and French on-board protection teams "arrest" pirates. In all, three pirate groups were thus neutralized on Friday.
All these attacks are located in the same area, in the southern part of the Somali basin, between Seychelles and Kenya, at around 3-4° South and 45-46° East. Several EU military resources are already mobilized in the area: 2 maritime patrol planes, one from the Seychelles (1 Merlin III from Luxembourg), the other from Djibouti (1 P3 Orion). And at least two ships: a French frigate, the Nivose, which was a little further west, and the Italian flagship Etna, which took charge of escorting the attacked Spanish ships to the Seychelles.
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)
(*) Originally Italian ship, based in the Seychelles, but now sailing under the blue-white-red tricolor flag to benefit from the French EPEs.
(1st info: Friday 16 p.m., update: Saturday 8 a.m., Saturday 19 p.m., Sunday 13 p.m. and Monday 18 p.m.) - photo credit: Spanish Navy, European Union)
