The 12 and 13 in May, the Navy hosted the second seminar "Shared Awareness and De-confliction" (SHADE) for the Mediterranean under the head of the Rome Naval Team.
To open the forum the captain of the vessel Gianfranco Annunziata, head of the 3 ° Operations and Maritime Strategy Department of the Navy Staff which highlighted how the Mediterranean is fertile ground for the illicit trafficking of human beings and how fundamental are the operations at sea such as the Safe Sea and the EUNAVFOR MED operation Sophia.
The seminar offered an opportunity to meet and share experiences and procedures for 145 delegates from 74 different organizations, including government bodies and armed forces of states bordering the Mediterranean, international institutions, such as the United Nations and the European Union and non-governmental organizations engaged in rescue operations at sea.
These organizations are engaged on a daily basis in response to the phenomenon of Mediterranean migration, both by saving lives, in compliance with the obligations imposed by international law, and by taking all the necessary actions to combat trafficking in human beings and prevent further loss of life. at sea.
The novelty of this edition was the establishment of 8 working groups that discussed, in detail, the most significant issues connected with the phenomenon of migration in the Mediterranean.
"We are doing a great job in fields such as the need to identify legal solutions to define the smuggling of human beings into international law and technical solutions such as the creation of a Maritime Security Capacity that will allow the exchange of information in real time among all the players involved, using a communication system called SMART, which will have similar functionalities to those of the MERCURY system, successfully used in the fight against piracy in the Horn of Africa "explained the divisional admiral Enrico Credendino, commander of the operation EUNAVFOR MED.
- During the press conference, we had the opportunity to ask the admiral some questions.
What results do you expect concretely from the forum?
There are 8 work groups on different topics. For example, there is one that deals with the legal aspects. Piracy is an international crime and the more than 100 countries that recognize it as such have common tools to tackle it. This is not the case for the transnational trafficking in human beings. Then there are two intelligence working groups and one - very important - on the operational aspects to propose solutions to the international community to tackle the migration phenomenon and the crimes related to it.
Are you aware that the military represent a moment of international unity with their missions? On the ground - for example in Libya - each country supports different factions ...
This unity has always occurred because - in particular the sailors - speak the same language when it comes to saving someone. Our goal is to be able to stabilize Libya in order to be able to effectively avoid many deaths among migrants.
