Belgian Navy: international ops on a shoestring budget

On 14 September, the frigate BNS Louise-Marie was patrolling the Gulf of Aden when it chanced upon a sinking skiff. As the dilapidated craft's passengers took to the water, the Belgian warship quickly manoeuvred to deploy its sea boats, rescuing 38 survivors.

The previous day, the Karel Doorman-class frigate had been tasked to escort one of its more unusual charges: a 29,000-ton semi-submersible heavy-lift ship. Mighty Servant 1 was en route from the Maldives to Norway, transporting part of an oil production platform.

On 3 October, sailors from Louise-Marie were ordered to board and search a skiff that had approached a merchant vessel at high speed. The skiff ignored instructions to stop until the frigate's embarked helicopter fired two warning bursts from its machine gun.

These are just a few of the incidents that have occurred since the beginning of September, when the Maritime Component of the Belgian Armed Forces (BAF) deployed what is one half of its frigate force on Operation 'Atalanta', the multinational counter-piracy mission being undertaken by EU Naval Force Somalia off the Horn of Africa.

In the same month, Belgium's Minister of Defence, Pieter de Crem, announced that he had asked the EU Council to delegate command of the 'Atalanta' task group to the BAF Maritime Component - commonly known as the Belgian Navy (BN) - for three months in 2010.

In the past few years, the BN has deployed assets in support of NATO's Operation 'Active Endeavour', the UN Interim Force for Lebanon (UNIFIL) Maritime Task Force (MTF) 448 and drug interdiction operations in the Caribbean. In addition, a Belgian minehunter is permanently assigned to Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 1 (SNMCMG 1) and the nation provides the group's commander and command platform on a rotational basis.