The Romanian frigate F-221 ROS Regele Ferdinand will be returning home shortly. She left Romania in mid September and sailed the seas off the coast of Somalia as a part of EU’s anti piracy operation Atalanta.
The crew from Romanian frigate ROS Regele Ferdinand are proud to be sailing home to their base port of Constanta after completing Romania’s first counter piracy operation as part of the EU Naval Force (EU NAVFOR) Somalia, Operation Atalanta.
ROS Regele Ferdinand joined EU NAVFOR at the beginning of October and after sailing from Djibouti on 3 October, the warship commenced counter-piracy patrols in the internationally recommended transit corridor (IRTC) in the Gulf of Aden. She also escorted a World Food Programme (WFP) ship along the Somali Coast to ensure much-needed food arrived safely in to Somalia to help feed her people.
During her time with EU NAVFOR, the warship also conducted seven ‘friendly approach’ missions. Friendly approaches are conducted to gather intelligence by speaking with fishing communities and trading vessels in the area of operations, and to help make masters and crews aware of Best Management Practices (BMP) for protection against pirates in the region.
In the meantime Ukraine is planing to send their frigate Getman Sagaidachny to Gulf Of Aden to take part in the anti-piracy operations in the region.
It is planned to deploy Ukrainian frigate Getman Sagaidachny to East African coast in order to fight sea piracy, reports Ukrainian Navy Press Center referring to the Navy Commander Yury Ilyin.
The commander stressed that Ukrainian Navy would resume its presence in certain zones of the Black and the Mediterranean seas. In particular, it is planned that frigate Getman Sagaidachny with a helicopter and a special-task unit aboard will be deployed near the Horn of Africa as a part of the international anti-piracy campaign, says the press-release.
Yury Ilyin said at the Navy Council session that the year of 2012 was a breakthrough in arms recovery. In the current year, financing of ship repair works was five times as large as in previous years.
Presently, we continue this work, but even now one can say with confidence that early in 2013 the fleet’s core will comprise 11 warships fully ready for combat use, emphasized the Navy commander. He added that Ukrainian Navy would also have 10 aircraft and 31 supply vessels.
It is not clear to which anti piracy task force the Ukraine frigate will join.
devrimyaylali.com 