Some 12 Kenyans, two officials from Madagascar and one from Seychelles attended the two-week training.
MOMBASA, Kenya, Oct 26 – Kenyan officials, drawn from the Navy, Ministry of Interior, Kenya Ports Authority and Kenya Revenue Authority, have undergone a two-week training on maritime data analysis in Mombasa.
The European Union Critical Maritime Route Indian Ocean (EU Crimario), which trained the officials, said development of the blue economy requires the control of crimes and incidents at sea.
Olivier Bizier, EU Crimario Trainer, said the training is critical in assisting 21 countries within the West Indian Ocean share critical information on safety and security of their waters.
He said the participants learned the alert warning process, and basics of maritime intelligence, deepening their knowledge in the law of the sea, oil and gas offshore installations.
Speaking to the press after the end of the two-week training at Whitesands Beach Hotel Mombasa, Bizier said a good number of those who attended have succeeded to move to the second stage of training.
Some 12 Kenyans, two officials from Madagascar and one from Seychelles attended the two-week training.
Tony Kibwana, the Kenya Ports Authority Principal Security Officer, said the training has really helped the countries on sharing vital information on how to curb piracy and insecurity in the deep seas.
“EU Crimario has really helped the countries in the region and they were particularly handy when we had cases of piracy along our oceans,” said Kibwana.
He said the incidences of piracy have gone down since the countries started sharing information.
Kibwana said Kenya as a country has a multi-agency team based at the port of Mombasa which does maritime data analysis.
Mostly the agencies that have been trained by EU Crimario from Kenya are; Kenya Ports Authority, Kenya Maritime Authority and the Navy and Kenya Revenue Authority.
“The Maritime Data Analysis Training that has been taken place at Whitesands for the past two weeks will really help the analysts to better analyse situation in the sea and follow the right course to mitigate,” he said.
