French navy seizes tanker Deliver flying illegal Cameroonian flag off Sicily

The French Navy has intercepted the oil tanker Deliver, a vessel unlawfully flying the Cameroonian flag, because it is under sanctions imposed by Yaoundé.

Following the earlier interception of the ships Tagor and Smyrtos in early June while they illegally displayed the Cameroonian flag in the English Channel, French naval forces boarded the Deliver on Tuesday, 23 June, as it flew a fake Cameroonian flag. “An examination of the documents confirmed the doubts about the regularity” of the Cameroonian flag it was showing.

Although it carried the Cameroonian flag, the vessel had been sanctioned by Yaoundé after the incidents involving the Tagor and Smyrtos. French President Emmanuel Macron stated that the tanker is believed to belong to the Russian shadow fleet.

“The French Navy seized the Deliver on Tuesday as it was sailing off the coast of Sicily in violation of the law of the sea. This new action against the shadow fleet, coming just days after a similar operation by the United Kingdom, shows the determination of the Europeans,” Macron wrote.

“We will not allow the shadow fleet to bypass sanctions and fund the Russian war effort,” he added. In recent weeks, Cameroon’s transport ministry has imposed sanctions and struck 39 vessels from its registry.

For Yaoundé, these measures are intended to carry out physical identification and digitalisation operations in order to better control the registered fleet and protect the Cameroonian label.