Piraterie — Portugal’s first MPRA mission for EU NAVFOR

On Wednes­day 21st April, a Por­tuguese Mar­itime Patrol Recon­nais­sance Air­craft (MPRA) arrived in Vic­to­ria, Sey­chelles, to aug­ment the oth­er Mar­itime Patrol air­craft from Swe­den and Lux­em­burg of EU NAVFOR’s anti pira­cy oper­a­tion – Ata­lan­ta.

Por­tugise MPRA p3 Papa Source: EU NAVFOR

Dur­ing the next four months the Por­tuguese P3 Papa air­craft will mon­i­tor the waters off the coast of Soma­lia pro­vid­ing the Force Com­man­der with essen­tial infor­ma­tion on the move­ments of ships in the area. 

This is the first time a MPRA from Por­tu­gal has par­tic­i­pat­ed in the EU NAVFOR oper­a­tion. The air­craft is a P3 Papa, equipped with sev­er­al advanced sur­veil­lance sys­tems which will sig­nif­i­cant­ly enhance EU NAVFOR’s Intel­li­gence, Sur­veil­lance and Recon­nais­sance (ISR) capa­bil­i­ty in the Soma­li Basin. The MPRA is manned by a mil­i­tary crew of 41 sup­port per­son­nel from the Por­tuguese Air Force. 

EU NAVFOR Soma­lia – Oper­a­tion ATALANTA’s main tasks are to escort mer­chant ves­sels car­ry­ing human­i­tar­i­an aid of the ‘World Food Pro­gram’ (WFP) and ves­sels of the ‘African Union Mis­sion for Soma­lia’ (AMISOM), and to pro­tect vul­ner­a­ble ships in the Gulf of Aden and Indi­an Ocean and to deter and dis­rupt pira­cy. EU NAVFOR also mon­i­tors fish­ing activ­i­ty off the coast of Somalia. 

Press release
EU NAVFOR