New Madagascan Sub-Centre Boosts African SAR Coverage

Penultimate Sunday’s launch of a search and rescue (SAR) sub-centre in Antananarivo, Madagascar, offers a further key link in the plan to provide effective SAR coverage off the coast of Africa.

The Maritime Rescue Sub-Centre (MRSC) in Madagascar will operate in conjunction with the regional Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Cape Town, South Africa.

The sub-centre was commissioned on 11 December, 2011, by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Secretary-General, Admiral Efthimios Mitropoulos, together with Madagascar’s Minister of Transports, Mr. Benjamina Ramarcel Ramantsoa and Director-General of the Agence Portuaire, Maritime et Fluviale (APMF).

The inauguration of the new facility, which will operate as a joint maritime and aeronautical centre, marks an important step in a process that began at a conference on Search and Rescue and the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System, convened by IMO in Florence, Italy, in October 2000.

African governments represented at the conference agreed on a regional approach to the provision of SAR services in western, southern and eastern parts of the continent as well as in island states around Africa.

They, therefore, adopted a resolution inviting the African countries bordering the Atlantic and Indian oceans as well as nearby Atlantic and Indian Oceans island states, to establish five regional centres and 25 sub-centres to cover their entire coastline for SAR coordination purposes.

The establishment of appropriate SAR facilities off the coast of Africa was seen as a key component in the implementation of the Global SAR Plan, the final part of which had been agreed in 1998 at an IMO Conference in Fremantle, Australia.

Speaking at the inauguration of the Madagascar MRSC, Mitropoulos said, “Manning the Antananarivo Centre on a 24- hour basis, seven days a week, 365 days a year, will require vigilance, professionalism and a sharp reaction to events; it will not be an easy task! May those, who serve in it, live up to our expectations,” he said.