Two German ships from NATO have joined Op Atalanta in the Gulf of Aden this week; the frigate FGS EMDEN and the tanker FGS SPESSART. The vessels have been detached from NATO’s Standing Naval Maritime Group One (SNMG1) which is on deployment to the Far East and are expected to remain under EU NAVFOR’s command until the end of April.

This weekend another German warship, the FGS RHEINLAND-PFALZ will escort EU NAVFOR’s 19^th World Food Program shipment into Mogadishu. This will bring the total tonnage delivered to Somalia to over 120,000 – enough to feed over 2 million displaced people every day since Op Atalanta was established last December.

Last weekend the EU NAVFOR French ship FS FLOREAL was involved in recovering a large skiff that was stranded in the Gulf of Aden carrying approximately 100 refugees. The warship assisted those onboard with humanitarian aid and towed the vessel to the Port of Aden to be handed over to the Yemeni coastguard and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

In a separate operation the French Warship FS GEORGES LEYGUES, which is temporarily attached to EU NAVFOR, rescued the crew from the 4,000 tonne MV Sibley 1 which caught fire and sank 350 miles off the coast of Tanzania on Saturday. The 31 man crew were then transferred to the FS JEANNE D’ ARC, which is also attached to EU NAVFOR and currently en route to Djibouti.