By Kampala Post Reporter
A two week Eastern African Standby Force (EASF) maritime search and rescue course is underway at Botanical Hotel -Entebbe.
The course which opened on Monday September 23, runs up to October 4, 2019. According to the UPDF, the course has attracted participants from the ten member states of Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda the host.
“Maritime search and rescue involves Navy, Coastal guards, Marines, Air Force and the civil community,” the UPDF statement indicates. The training aims at enhancing effective and competence skills in Search and Rescue (SAR) operations and it is expected to improve the trainees’ capability to maintain the Standby Force’s capacity and readiness to intervene in regional threats of maritime nature.
In his opening remarks, Deputy Commander Air Force Maj Gen Gavas Mugyenyi, on behalf of the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) Gen David Muhoozi, expressed UPDF’s immense honor to host such a course.
”Our country has had incidents on our Waters that require various agencies to pool resources and technical requirements to save lives. Critical to this are skilled human resource thus the relevance of this course," Maj Gen Gavas Mugenyi noted. He added that his presence is an expression of the CDF’s unwavering commitment and continued support to the Eastern African Standby Force (EASF) in its effort for a safe and secure maritime domain.
Maj General Mugenyi also noted that it is essential for all those who ply the maritime spaces to understand the search and rescue system and organization to be able to coordinate, execute and plan maritime search and rescue operation up and down the chain of command. He encouraged the participants to have an opportunity to learn from each other's experience.
The Director Eastern African Standby Force Dr. Abdillahi Omar Bouth encouraged the participants to put much effort and actively engage the instructors and always have desire to learn from the opportunity availed to them.
The UPDF Marines Brigade commander Brig Gen Michael Nyarwa, noted that the Eastern African Standby Force is one of the five regional mechanisms of Africa's Standby Force and it has a maritime component that has now chosen Uganda as host country, because it has deployed a maritime component to secure the coast of Mogadishu. Uganda also has a fifth of its territory covered by water bodies therefore the need for maritime search and rescue skills.