Last week, SEACOP delivered a very successful mentorship for the Joint Maritime Control Unit of Cote d’Ivoire 🇨🇮.
15 participants from the Police, maritime police, port authority, national Gendarmerie and Customs were involved in the activity, which included practical exercises on board of vessels.
On Friday, the closing ceremony was presided over by the Secretary General of the inter-ministerial Committee for the Fight against Drugs (CILAD), the national focal point of the SEACOP project in Côte d’Ivoire, in the presence of Anne-Catherine Claude, head of the governance team, representing the European Union Delegation in Cote d’Ivoire and the Director of the National School of Ivorian Customs, whose premises hosted the training.
On behalf of the EUD, Mrs Claude welcomed the commitment and determination of the Ivorian authorities, urging them to adopt as soon as possible the legal framework of the unit for the fight against illicit maritime traffic.
For his part SEACOP Deputy Regional Coordinator Akizi-Egnim AKALA stated: “This mentoring allowed for the evaluation and reinforcement of the achievements of the first training held last November”. “We are proud to see so many efforts exerted by our partner country, which is a strategic country in the regional fight against illicit trafficking”, he added.
The ship search mentorship, which lasted four days in Abidjan, is part of SEACOP’s support to the country’s efforts to reinforce its maritime security capacities.
The exercises were officially launched during a ceremony held on Monday 30 January in the presence of representative of the attaché of internal security of the French Embassy and of the Institut de Sécurité Maritime Interrégional – ISMI.
