Mauritania’s Navy Unveils Five-Year Plan

DEFENCEWEB

The Mauritanian Navy has unveiled a five-year development plan that includes the acquisition of two 60-meter offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) and an undisclosed number of midsize vessels to secure the country’s 754-kilometer Atlantic Ocean coastline.

The government also wants to set up three new marine forces companies as the country tightens its maritime boundaries and conducts effective patrols within the 235,000-square-kilometer exclusive economic zone, according to IHS Jane’s.

Unveiling the plan during a ceremony at the Nouadhibou naval base, Mauritanian Navy Commander Adm. Isselkou Ould Cheik el-Weli said the two OPVs were already under construction. He did not disclose which company or country was contracted to build the vessels.

The Navy wants to boost its patrol fleet from an estimated 10 patrol and coastal craft, which includes the flagship Liman el Hadrami P-601, a Huang Class offshore patrol vessel donated by the Chinese government in 2008. The Spanish government donated two Airbus Military C212-200 maritime patrol aircraft between 2008 and 2011, boosting the Mauritanian Navy’s limited air-support capacity for search and rescue missions.

The Navy operates from two bases — one in the capital, Nouakchott, and another in the coastal town of Nouadhibou. It employs up to 650 seamen, including a naval infantry division, and is set to benefit from the formation of three new marine corps companies.

The Navy is facing a number of maritime crimes, which include swells of rickety, overloaded boats transporting African illegal immigrants through its maritime domain en route to Spain. Because Mauritania has porous land and sea borders, the country also faces serious problems of trans-Atlantic drug trafficking, arms trafficking and goods smuggling by organized crime syndicates, some with alleged links to the financing of terrorist militias in North Africa.