April 2009 raid off Somalia | |||||||
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Part of Piracy in Somalia, Operation Atalanta | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
France Germany | Somali pirates | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Guillaume Goutay [1] | Unknown | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
France: 3 frigates 70 marine commandos 1 C-130 Hercules Germany: 1 frigate | 1 yacht 5 pirates | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
None | 1 yacht captured 2 killed 3 captured | ||||||
1 civilian killed |
The April 2009 raid off Somalia was a military operation conducted by France and Germany to retake the French yacht Tanit on 9 April 2009, a yacht which had been captured by Somali pirates on 4 April 2009. It occurred during Operation Atalanta, a European Union mission in Somali waters. [2] The pirates had attempted to extract a ransom by holding the yacht's occupants hostage, but were ultimately defeated when the French Navy assaulted them.
Tanit, a privately owned French yacht named after the Phoenician lunar goddess, with its five crew and passengers was sailing to Zanzibar when it was boarded by pirates on 4 April. Among the hostages were a family of three including a three-year-old boy, and two friends of the family who joined them in Aden. The ship's owners, the Lemaçons, started from Vannes in July 2008 and sailed south to the coast of Spain. This was a family trip "to escape consumer society". They planned to visit Kenya and Zanzibar. Even after meeting with a couple whose yacht, Carré d'As IV , had been captured by pirates, and later rescued by French commandos, [3] they continued on their journey.
The pirates headed the vessel for the coast but were overrun two days later by a French frigate. French forces attempted to negotiate with the pirates offering them money and offering to exchange the mother and child for a French naval officer. The pirates declined this. Instead, they were overheard discussing using explosives to blow up the yacht. [3]
History | |
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Name | Tanit |
Captured | 4 April 2009 |
Fate | Rescued, action of 9 April 2009 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Colin Archer cutter |
Length | 12.5 m (41 ft) |
Fifty commandos were sent from France to a French base at Djibouti on 9 April, in readiness for the assault. Joined locally by 20 more commandos, they parachuted from a C-130 Hercules plane into the sea, to be picked up by three French warships that had been tracking the pirates, together with a German frigate equipped with hospital facilities. [3]
The French attempted to negotiate with the pirates, and even offered to exchange one of the hostages for an officer. The pirates refused to cooperate, stating that they could get better terms once they reached the coast. Seeing the pirates were uncooperative a sniper on-board one of the vessels managed to shoot down the sails and to damage the mast and the yacht. This the French believed would put them in a better negotiating position, but it created havoc on board, causing the pirates to refuse to accede to any of the French demands. [3]
Allegedly, after threats to execute the hostages were heard, the French Navy decided the next day to board the boat and free the hostages. French commandos attacked the hijacked vessel from different directions in two speedboats. The pirates opened fire and the special forces team fired back. French naval commandos then boarded the vessel and rescued the hostages. [1] However, Florent Lemaçon, the boat's captain and father of the three-year-old boy, was being held hostage in his cabin. When French commandos entered, they engaged in a shootout with the pirates, during which Lemaçon was killed. [4]
After the fighting ended the four freed hostages were taken in one of the frigates, to Djibouti, and from there transported back to France. [5] Three pirates were taken to Rennes for questioning. [6]
In total, 70 men of the French naval forces, including men of the French commando Hubert, French frigates Aconit, Floréal and the aviso Commandant Ducuing and German frigate Mecklenburg-Vorpommern participated in the operation. [7]
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Piracy off the coast of Somalia occurs in the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel, and Somali Sea, in Somali territorial waters and other surrounding places and has a long troubled history with different perspectives from different communities. It was initially a threat to international fishing vessels during the early 2000s, only to rapidly escalate and expand to international shipping during the War in Somalia (2006–2009).
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Operation Atalanta, formally European Union Naval ForceSomalia, is an ongoing counter-piracy military operation at sea off the Horn of Africa and in the Western Indian Ocean, that is the first naval operation conducted by the European Union (EU), in support of United Nations resolutions 1814, 1816, 1838, and 1846 adopted in 2008 by the United Nations Security Council. Since 29 March 2019, the operational headquarters is located at Naval Station Rota in Spain, having moved from London as a result of the British withdrawal from the EU.
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The following lists events that happened in 2009 in Somalia.
Piracy in Somalia has been a threat to international shipping since the beginning of the country's civil war in the early 1990s. Since 2005, many international organizations have expressed concern over the rise in acts of piracy. Piracy impeded the delivery of shipments and increased shipping expenses, costing an estimated $6.6 to $6.9 billion a year in global trade in 2011 according to Oceans Beyond Piracy (OBP).
Somalia–Spain relations are the bilateral and diplomatic relations between these two countries. Somalia has no embassy in Spain, nor Spain in Somalia, but the Spanish embassy in Nairobi is accredited to Somalia.
Piracy kidnappings occur during piracy, when people are kidnapped by pirates or taken hostage. Article 1 of the United Nations International Convention against the Taking of Hostages defines a hostage-taker as "any person who seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure, or to continue to detain another person in order to compel a third party namely, a State, an international intergovernmental organization, a natural or Juridical person, or a group of people, to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition tor the release of the hostage commits the offense of taking of hostages ("hostage-taking") within the meaning of this convention." Kidnappers often try to obtain the largest financial reward possible in exchange for hostages, but piracy kidnappings can also be politically motivated.