Foreign forces combating piracy within our waters are guided by the Seychelles Coast Guard (SCG) who is playing that role very well.

The commander of the visiting Indian naval ship INS Brahmaputra, Captain Ajay Kumar, said this at State House yesterday after he called on Vice-President Danny Faure.

“They are doing it very well with excellent cooperation. It couldn’t be better,” he said, when Nation asked him how the SCG is doing in the surveillance of our exclusive economic zone in which India is playing key aerial and maritime roles.

“When we go on missions within your EEZ, officers from the SCG embark our ship and it is through their guidance that we operate. We are in touch with the Seychelles Coast Guard control room all the time and we inform them about the activities taking place which we suspect are not in the interest of the government of Seychelles, and under their directive we take action,” he said, giving an example of a foreign boat that was fishing here illegally recently and was brought to Port Victoria.

Nation had asked him what his navy would do with pirates if it caught some, but he said the navy works under our guidance while here, so the SGC officers would be the ones to deal with such buccaneers.

He said besides the anti-piracy operations, the navy also does anti-smuggling work with the SCG within our exclusive economic zone “which is very vast”.

Captain Kumar’s talks with Mr Faure centred on the good cooperation between the two countries including the many visits of vessels from India including those doing hydrographic work.
He said since many of our SCG officers have been trained in or by India, working together is easy.

Working together helps members of the two forces share experiences, he said, adding there are about 220 men and 25 officers on the ship in port which will take part in maritime activities in Seychelles waters for several weeks, return to India and come back here.

Forrás: www.nation.sc