First woman to command Mexico’s Navy coast guard cutter in unprecedented appointment

Mexico’s Navy (SEMAR) said Sunday it has named the first woman to command a coast guard cutter, the largest command yet for a female in the Mexican service.

Frigate Lt. Gloria Cházaro Berriel took command of the 42.8-meter Bonampak. Previously, women had commanded only smaller 17-meter pursuit vessels in the Mexican Navy, a post in which Cházaro Berriel previously served.

The Bonampak has a crew of 15 and is the type of vessel that patrols within Mexico’s territorial waters in tasks like intercepting drug shipments. Mexico has no separate coast guard, and the Navy performs that role.

The Navy said Cházaro Berriel took the cutter out Saturday from the Pacific coast port of Mazatlán on her first mission in command. Her ship is headed for deployment around the Islas Marías, a former penal colony in the Pacific that has been turned into an environmental education center.

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Cházaro Berriel graduated first in her class from the Naval Academy.

As the Second Commander of the SEMAR’s Bonampak, Cházaro Berriel sailed from Mazatlán, Sinaloa in order to help to monitor the natural protected areas of the Islas Marías Archipelago, as informed by Mexico’s Navy.

Lt. Cházaro Berriel has the duty of commanding the vessels as well as performing the tasks she is assigned in the most efficient way.

According to the SEMAR , Bonampak has 15 crew members and the mission to perform operations related to surveillance, interdiction, dissuasion, search, rescue, salvage, and combat illicit activities in order to maintain the State of Law and safeguard human life in Mexican seas.

According to the SEMAR, Bonampak’s design and characteristic próvida a substantial tactical-operational worth to the duties performed by the Navy to safeguard the sovereignty and protect security at seas and coasts.

Mexico’s Navy

stressed that Cházaro Berriel graduated from the Naval Military Heroic School with honors as she was her class’s valedictorian.

She has served as Navigation Officer, Chief of the Weaponry Department of an Oceanic Patrol, and as the Commander of an Interception Patrol of Mexico’s Armed Forces.

In 2018, she won a one-year scholarship to study her Master’s in Security and Applied Strategy at the University of Exeter in the UK.

When she returned to Mexico, she joined the Fourth Naval Area based on Mazatlán, Sinaloa under the Eighth Fleet, and was appointed Second Commander of the Bonampak.

The SEMAR said that, with these actions, there is a new opportunity for new generations as it endorses the leadership and empowerment of Navy women .

Mexico’s Navy congratulated Lt. Cházaro Berriel for this accomplishment that is making history in the institution and celebrated the work of Navy women who serve the country every day with courage and tenacity.

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