New Delhi, June 18: The Indian Navy crossed a milestone in out-of-area operations this week by escorting its thousandth ship through the piracy-threatened waters off Somalia.
The navy has been deployed in the International Maritime Transit Corridor off the Horn of Africa and the coast of Somalia since October 2008, making it the navy’s longest continuous out-of-area deployment ever.
About 50 per cent of India’s imports by sea sail in through this route. The thousandth ship the navy’s INS Brahmaputra escorted across the Gulf of Aden was the MV Borzna.
Indian naval patrols have so far escorted 1,037 merchant vessels — 134 Indian-flagged ships and 903 foreign-flagged ships.
The anti-piracy patrol is in addition to the Exclusive Economic Zone regular patrol and its surveillance in the waters off the Maldives and the Seychelles. A navy spokesperson said here today that Indian warships had escorted merchant vessels of as many as 50 countries.
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