South-Korean Naval Force returns

Following the successful completion of 186 days of anti-piracy efforts in waters off Somalia, the first South Korean Cheonghae unit aboard the destroyer Munmu the Great returned to Busan yesterday.

In March, the navy dispatched a 300-member task force and the 4,500-ton destroyer to Somalia’s pirate-infested waters. In Korea’s first deployment of a naval combat unit for an overseas mission, the contingent successfully blocked all attempts by pirates to hijack civilian ships in its operational waters, the military said.

According to the Navy, the unit, in cooperation with the international naval task force called Combined Task Force 151, guarded 325 commercial ships, including 140 Korean vessels, in shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia.

The Navy said the force repulsed seven piracy attempts. One of the seven ships saved by the unit was North Korea’s Dabaksol. A second Cheonghae unit and the destroyer Daejoyeong have recently relieved their counterparts on the mission.

In past years, Korean ships and crews have increasingly become the target of Somali pirates. About 460 Korean vessels use the route every year.

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