EU Naval Force - Somalia
Operation ATALANTA

The Swedish Supreme Commander, General Sverker Göranson, visited HSwMS Carlskrona and the Force Headquarters during her last port visit in Djibouti on Friday 23 of April.

“I’m really impressed, when I see how efficiently the Force Commander and his Chief of Staff have moulded such a close knit team from of a multinational group of officers, in such a short time”, stated the Swedish Supreme Commander, after his two-day visit to the EU NAVFOR FHQ. “I believe one reason is that they all met already during a recent Command Post Exercise at our C2-regiment in Enköping, a smart move”, he continued.

Since the ship is newly refitted with enhanced helicopter capability and command and control capacity at Task Force level, he was keen to see how it worked in full operation.

“Of course I’m proud that a small country like Sweden was chosen to run the Task Force 465 round the Horn of Africa– a task that is normally granted to the larger European countries.”

The Swedish general believes that Sweden will continue to contribute to the EU NAVFOR on a regular basis.

“This operation will be needed for a long time – the problem with piracy is quite complex – but I believe that there must be a solution on land, in Somalia, to bring this to an end” the Swedish Supreme Commander stated.

EU NAVFOR Somalia – Operation ATALANTA’s main tasks are to escort merchant vessels carrying humanitarian aid of the World Food Programme (WFP) and vessels of  African Unions Mission for Somalia (AMISOM) and to protect vulnerable vessels in the Gulf  of Aden and Indian Ocean and to deter and disrupt piracy. EU NAVFOR also monitors fishing activity off the coast of Somalia.