GULF OF ADEN, July 6 - Recently, the 35th Chinese naval escort taskforce escorted four foreign merchant vessels to a predetermined sea area, successfully completing its 1317th convoy mission.
Affected by the monsoon, the Gulf of Aden is currently subject to massive waves and poor visibility. To ensure that the escorted vessels are perfectly safe, the taskforce increased the mission level and dispatched multiple helicopters for two consecutive days to step up air patrol. At the same time, they extended the escort operation by more than 100 nautical miles on the basis of the original plan according to the actual situation.
During the mission, the Chinese taskforce also organized anti-piracy training for its special operations unit, including the attack in concealment, shipboard climbing, cabin search, etc.
According to the taskforce command post, there have been more and more foreign merchant vessels resorting to escort from the PLA Navy. The vessels protected this time are a Maltese multi-purpose vessel "Adam Asnik", a Panamanian semi-submersible vessel "Innovation Road" and two Bahamian oil tankers. It is learned that as of July 2, local time, the Chinese naval escort taskforce has escorted 6,799 merchant vessels, of which 3,543 are foreign ships.
