First training on IORIS, the platform for incident management at sea

IORIS, a flexible and low tech tool, owned and managed by the region

Maritime security is at the top agenda of the western Indian Ocean countries. Frequent incidents at sea (piracy attacks, drug trafficking, illegal fishing, etc.) are a reminder of crucial importance of regional cooperation and inter-agency coordination to respond to any crime and/or accident at sea.

EU CRIMARIO enhances those efforts together with national and international initiatives; with the contribution of IO countries, the project has defined a web-based platform called IORIS for sharing information and managing any incident at sea. IORIS is designed to be a flexible and low tech tool, owned and managed by the region.

IORIS will be used by the regional entities in charge of maritime security, at first the two regional centres covering the ESA-IO region (Eastern and Southern Africa-Indian Ocean) following decisions of the Ministerial meeting held in Djibouti on May 15, 2016: RMIFC based in Madagascar and RCOC based in Seychelles. National agencies of the coastal countries will also benefit of the tool according to the global access policy.

IORIS main features include multiple areas (for national, regional or incident purposes), instant messaging, import from data sources (i.e. AIS) to locate vessels, navigation markers, input forms, document workflow, etc. in a secure environment.

First training

During the three-day training, participants learned how to exploit all the functionalities of IORIS, in order to collaborate efficiently at the national and/or regional level for mastering what is going on at sea and to coordinate operations.

The training was delivered by a team from Polymorph Ltd, the company who developed the platform according to the specifications provided by CRIMARIO and the partner countries.

The first pool of 16 trainees who will in turn train their colleagues, belong to the following agencies: the two regional centres (RCOC based in Seychelles and RMFIC based in Madagascar), Mauritian Coast Guard, Kenya agencies (KMA, KPA and Kenya Navy). EU NAVFOR representative attended this session for enhancing the cooperation among the European initiatives in the field of maritime security in the Indian Ocean.

The official launch of IORIS is planned to be held in Seychelles, during the last week of August. In the meantime, two other training sessions (level 2 and 3) will be organised in Seychelles to deepen the knowledge of the trainers before the full operationalisation of the platform. In addition, sessions in French will be held for Comoros and other countries.
 

Find out more about CRIMARIO : www.crimario.eu