Cameroon has taken delivery of the two patrol vessels that were completed in China last year, Airbus Defence and Space satellite imagery has confirmed.

The imagery from 23 January shows two 64 m vessels moored in the commercial area of Duala, rather than at the existing naval base, which will struggle to accommodate the new vessels.

It emerged that the two vessels were being built for the West African country when the Journal du Cameroun newspaper reported on 24 April 2014 that Defence Minister Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o had inspected the work during a trip to the Chinese city of Qingdao.

The story was accompanied by a photograph showing the Cameroonian delegation standing on the foredeck of a ship armed with a 76 mm PJ26 (the Chinese version of the AK-176) multipurpose gun.

Journal du Cameroun said the ships were being built under a contract signed with the Chinese company Poly Technologies in October 2013 and that the project was at least partly funded by the Export-Import (Exim) Bank of China.

No further details have been released about the new vessels since then and it is unclear when they were delivered.

ANALYSIS

The Cameroonian Navy had only one vessel that was capable of carrying out extended patrols before the arrival of the Chinese patrol vessels as its 42 m patrol craft L’Audacieux has been out of the water since at least 2003, leaving the 53 m vessel Bakassi as the only such asset.

However, photographs posted on a Facebook page that claims affiliation with Cameroon’s Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) shows that the Delta branch of the elite force has been using the accommodation vessel Rio Del Rey (IMO: 9480681) as a floating base for rigid-hull inflatable boats (RHIB) and helicopters, thereby extending their operational range.

Automatic Identification System (AIS) data shows that the Rio Del Rey , which is owned by the national oil and gas company Société Nationale des Hydrocarbures (SNH), generally operates off the Bakassi Peninsula, near Cameroon’s maritime border with Nigeria.