Colombia puts two new naval ships into service
Xinhua, March 31, 2015 Adjust font size:
The Colombian Navy on Monday put two new naval ships into service in the country's Pacific waters in order to defend its sovereignty and strengthen maritime operations against drug trafficking by speedboats in particular.
"Their primary mission is to protect human life at sea, maritime interdiction operations, patrol and surveillance of maritime areas, and to support in border control operations to detect, intercept and inspect other vessels," according to a navy statement.
The two ships, "ARC Punta Ardita" and "ARC Punta Soldado," are 45.25 meters in length and 7.1 meters in width each, the statement said, adding that it took around 20 months to build the vessels at a shipyard in South Korea, with the assembly work supervised by the Colombian Navy.
"We can proudly say that the navy has finally a significant presence in the Pacific Ocean, that from today on will be supplemented with these two patrol vessels," Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said during the presentation ceremony of the ships.
Meanwhile, Santos said that the Colombian Navy has seized two tons of cocaine off the Pacific coast in the last 48 hours. Endi