Spain has this weekend assumed command of the Operation Atalanta Force, replacing Italy, in a deployment marked by the growing piracy activity in recent months in Somali waters.
The Spanish Navy frigate Numancia will lead the EU naval mission, established in 2008, as the flagship of the Operation.
Atalanta’s mandate focuses on deterring, preventing, and suppressing piracy and armed robbery in the area of operations, while protecting the World Food Program and other vulnerable vessels transiting the region, contributing to traffic surveillance of drugs, weapons, illicit trade and illegal fishing, as well as the arms embargo on Somalia.