The 6 August Italy has completed a new cycle of command of the operation Atalanta which for ten years has been deployed in the Indian Ocean with the aim of ensuring the safety of maritime traffic from the threat of maritime piracy.
In the port of Djibouti the force commander, Rear Admiral Simone Malvagna, embarked with his international staff on the flagship Carlo Margottini, in fact, he lowered his insignia by giving the command to Admiral Alfonso Perez de Nanclares, embarked on the Spanish ship “Castilla”.
Thus ended the 4 months under the Italian leadership of the mission, to which Spanish and German air and naval assets and a Montenegrin security team embarked on a merchant ship of the World Food Program contributed.
The operation Atalanta was established by the EU in 2008 in response to repeated acts of Somali piracy against merchant ships in transit, with the primary objective of protecting the ships of the World Food Program (WFP), of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and other vulnerable units, countering and preventing such attacks.
The phenomenon of piracy, while showing signs of regression, cannot be considered completely eradicated, which is why the operation Atalanta, carried out in close coordination with the other Marine operating in this part of the Indian Ocean, making use of specific resources and referring to an increasingly comprehensive approach, it is also dedicated to other sectors of support to riparian communities whose consolidation is considered crucial for stabilization area.
Currently Atalanta in fact, it also makes its operational capabilities available to support other missions of the European Union and international organizations operating in the area. In this context, both the opportunities for meeting the highest political authorities of the coastal countries and for interacting with the Navies and Coast Guards belonging to them play an increasingly important role.
The stops of Nave Margottini in Oman, Djibouti, Tanzania, Seychelles and Kenya were thus exploited to plan and carry out specific "capacity building" activities in favor of local security forces in order to transmit to them the necessary knowledge to operate independently in the fight against illegal activities.
As part of the so-called "Naval Diplomacy" to highlight instead the meeting between the force commander and the Prime Minister of Somalia occurred on the occasion of the European Day in Mogadishu as well as with the deputy prime minister received aboard ship Margottini.
In addition Nave Margottini it has conducted Civilian and Military Cooperation (CiMiC) activities, with the aim of supporting and sustaining specific local structures and organizations that deal with helping those particularly disadvantaged sections of the population.
Despite the commitments deriving from this close activity, all the opportunities useful to improve and refine the operations and training of the units included in the device were also taken. Numerous and relevant were in fact the exercises and cooperations carried out with the other naval forces present in the area of operation, including the navies of Japan, South Korea and Oman.
In conclusion, a more than positive balance for our soldiers aboard Nave Margottini that before being inserted into the device Atalanta, has carried out an intense activity of naval presence, surveillance and diplomacy in the Persian Gulf where it took part in one of the most important international exhibitions in the defense sector, the Dimdex 2018 (Doha International Maritime Defense Exhibition).
