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The purpose is to provide these units with the capability to face any kind of threat, including
terrorist threats, organized crime and trafficking in human beings and also environmental problems
as well as ensuring effective border
control.
The objective of the GAR-SI action
concerns the extra-urban, rural and semi-
desert areas, the places which are most
exposed to the infiltration of any type of
criminal organization. The primary task
of the specialized units is to guarantee
control over these wide territories where
in fact various forms of illegality have
found the suitable terrain to proliferate,
which also creates advantage to the
rooting of terrorist groups.
Mauritania, for instance, has got an area
of over one million square kilometres, but only two cities exceed one hundred thousand inhabitants.
Therefore it is easy to understand the difficulty to manage the internal security with this type of
fragmented societies and small villages.
In this context the International Cooperation is working in order to improve the collaboration within
the European gendarmeries, supporting this part of Africa.
This training activity is working thanks to the collaboration of the different European gendarmeries:
Arma dei Carabinieri from Italy, Guardia Civil from Spain, Gendarmerie Nationale from France,
Guarda Nacional Republicana from Portugal.
The Carabinieri has been developing over the
years an international, long experience in
missions abroad, not only aimed at crisis
management, but also in other police
cooperation missions: with the recent
creation of the Cufaa (Environmental and
Agri-food Forestry Unit Command), the
involvement in training and awareness on the
main environmental issues has increased. In
March the project involved the specific
Environmental Command of the Carabinieri
for an environmental training in Mauritania
within an activity that took place in the
capital, Nouakchott.
The environmental problems afflicting the Sahel countries are multiple and they have varying
severity because the area is particularly vulnerable and sensitive to global climate change; the great
droughts that occurred in the past and which periodically recur have affected more than thirteen
million people, causing worsening conditions of food security as well as security for civilians and a
deterioration of habitats with an increasing desertification in the whole Sahel.

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