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… and the “Courbet” continues its merchant ship escorts

The "Sea Horse". Photo credit: Sirpa Marine / DICOD

(B2) One of the French ships present off Somalia, the Courbet, has been providing an escort for a month and a half, merchant navy boats. The device works according to the appointment system, in close liaison with the European coordination cell EU Navco. This in fact provides the interface between European shipowners (vessels can fly another flag) and the French command of the Indian Ocean maritime zone (ALINDIEN) which validates any request (and always has the possibility of refusing ).

Two slots per month. The "Royal" performs two support missions at the rate of two slots per month. Present since the beginning of the operation, the Courbet thus completed, at the end of October, the accompaniment of the Sea horse, a Belgian hourglass under the Dutch flag, announced the French navy. And on the return transit to Bab el Mandeb - the strait that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden - he accompanies the New Century, vessel under the flag of the Marshall Islands. This will be the Courbet's fourth escort, after the accompaniments of the ships "Yangtze River", under German armament, then of "the Intrepid "flying the Maltese flag.

NB: in addition to the nationality of the flag, it is generally the boats with sensitive contents or those most likely to be attacked that benefit from priority support. The slower a ship and the lower its waterline, the greater the risk (this was the case for the See Horse).

(NGV)

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

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