Newsroom

At a ceremony in Djibouti on board the EUNAVFOR French warship, FGS DE GRASSE, Rear Admiral (FR) Philippe Coindreau, who has been the Force Commander of EUNAVFOR Operation ATALANTA for the last four months, handed over to Rear Admiral Juan Rodriguez of Spain.

On 14 December 2010, EUNAVFOR Flagship FS DE GRASSE fulfilled her last day of operations after 4 months conducting counter-piracy activities in the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Basin. 

On 10 December 2010, the MV UNITED STAR reported it was under attack, approximately 500 nautical miles North East of Salalah (Oman).

On 12 December, FS JACOUBET and her 89 crewmembers joined Operation ATALANTA. FS JACOUBET is a French frigate that has entered service with the French Navy in 1982. She has a displacement of 1,175 tons and a length of 80 meters.

In the early hours of 11 December, the MV RENUAR was pirated in the Indian Ocean, approximately 1050 nautical miles east of the Somali coastal village of Eyl and a distance of 550 nautical miles from the coast of India.

On 11 December 2010, the Liberian-flagged MV ELENI P was released from pirate control.

On the afternoon of 10 December, the MV PANAMA was pirated by 2 armed skiffs with a total of 5 pirates on board.  A Rocket Propelled Grenade was used during the attack which occurred approximately 80 nautical miles east of the Tanzanian/Mozambique border.

On 8 December 2010, EUNAVFOR’s capacity has been reinforced with the arrival of the Spanish ship SPS PATINO in the area of operations.

On 8 December, the EUNAVFOR Spanish warship SPS INFANTA CRISTINA completed operating under EUNAVFOR, after four months working on Operation ATALANTA.

On 7 December 2010, the Saudi Arabian flagged Product tanker MV AL NISR AL SAUDI was released from under pirate control.

The MV FATHIL RABI, chartered by the World Food Program (WFP), was safely escorted by the two EUNAVFOR warships HS ADRIAS and FGS HAMBURG over the last 2 weeks, helping in the delivery of 2,397 metric tons of food to Somalia.

On 2 December, the EUNAVFOR Spanish ship SPS INFANTA CRISTINA located a drifting dhow towing a small skiff in the Internationally Recommended Transit Corridor (IRTC) in the Gulf of Aden.