Libyan Coastguard, Navy start new training in Italy

Members of the Libyan Navy and Coast Guard arrived in Italy on September 17 to attend new training modules at the Italian Navy Petty Officer Academy in Taranto.

Libyan authorities have sent a total of 87 candidates (Officers and Petty Officers) to EUNAVFOR Med for the training.

The trainees will attend two different training modules of respectively 8 and 3 weeks (being “Patrol Boat Crew Training” and “Train the Trainers”), included in “Training Package 2”, fully in respect of the Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2016 by the Rear Admiral (UH) Enrico Credendino, Commander of the EU-led Naval Operation “Sophia”, and the Commodore Abdalh Toumia, Commander of the Libyan Coastguard.

The objective of the training is to increase the security of Libyan territorial waters, implementing the capacities of the Libyan Coastguard and Navy to perform their duties, thus enhancing the capacity in basics of maritime security skills, including search and rescue activities to save lives and to disrupt smuggling and trafficking from/to Libyan shores.

The program, conducted within operation Sophia, will last till the mid of November 2017.

Launched in June 2015, Sophia is an EU military operation with the core task to contribute to wider EU efforts to disrupt the business model of human smuggling and trafficking networks in the Southern Central Mediterranean.

Additionally, from October 2016, the EU operation is fully involved in the training of the Libyan Navy Coastguard and Navy and in the implementation of the arms embargo off the coast of Libya according to UNSCR 2292(2016).

Up to now, 136 Libyans were trained by EUNAVFOR Med at sea, in Crete, in Malta and in Rome.