Colonel Emanuel Mallia of the Armed Forces of Malta has been selected by the EU’s Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) to participate in the EU Observer Mission in Italy in relation to the Costa Concordia cruise liner incident. Due to complexity of the emergency, the Italian Civil Protection has invited a small EU mission to observe the rescue and marine pollution operations, and to draft a short report with the main findings in order to share lessons learned with all Participating States.
As a Search and Rescue Expert, Col Mallia will join experts in other disciplines from Italy, France and Norway. The observer mission starts today and is expected to draw to a close on Sunday, 29 January 2012.
Commenting on this selection, AFM Commander, Brigadier Martin Xuereb, said that “this can be considered as an additional confirmation of how others are recognising the AFM’s level of expertise in this field. This is an additional feather in Malta’s cap, one that is added to others acquired recently.”
The AFM’s SAR capability received a clean bill of health during the Voluntary Member State Audit conducted by the IMO at the end of summer 2011. The auditors also identified a number of best Maltese practices, which will be remarked upon in their final report.
Late last year, the AFM also conducted an intensive one month SAR training for personnel from the Israeli SAR Authority, and will be delivering training to SAR personnel from Black Sea countries on behalf of the International Maritime Organisation.
On the heels of these successes, the AFM has received a request by Libya to provide training in the area of SAR, whilst an agreement has been finalized with the Swiss Government to sponsor 6 students (Libyan, Tunisian, and Egyptian) to attend the SAR Coordinator’s Course being held at Safi Barracks later on this year.
Malta also co-hosted with U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa, and Commander, U.S. 6th Fleet, for the second year running in December 2011 the Eurasia Partnership Capstone annual maritime conference with its training workshops ranging from maritime law enforcement, maritime search and rescue, marine environmental protection, leadership development courses for non-commissioned officers and, for the first time during EPC, advanced network-enabled maritime interdiction operations.
The EU MIC’s selection of Colonel Emanuel Mallia for the EU Observer Mission to Italy, places him alongside other MIC, OCHA French, Italian and Norwegian experts
The mission includes:
Mr Frederic Monard, FR, civil protection expert (Head of logistics department Paris Fire Brigade, OPM and IMC)
Ms Silje Berger, NO, Marine Pollution Expert (response to acute pollution within the NO Coastal Admin, TEC)
Mr Giuseppe Russo, IT, Marine Pollution Expert EMSA
Mr René Nijenhuis, Joint UNEP/OCHA Environment Unit (associated expert)
Laurent de Pierrefeu, MIC Liaison Officer.
Stock photo of Col Mallia.
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