Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 17th of September 2015

Case name: 2015_09_17-AEG73
Situation: 3 groups in distress in the Aegean Sea, near the Greek islands of Chios, Samos and Lesvos
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases:: On Thursday the 17th of September 2015 the Alarm Phone dealt with three emergency situations in the Aegean Sea.

At 6.46am we received a position via WhatsApp from a contact person, informing us about a group stuck on the tiny Greek island of Pasas between Cesme/Turkey and Chios/Greece. The group of 94 people, including children and women, had stranded there two hours earlier. One young man was injured and not able to walk. We alerted the Greek authorities and the UNHCR Greece via mail and called the Greek coastguard in Piraeus. They told us that the people should call them directly and refused to take our coordinates. At 7.30am we advised both the group of travellers as well as the contact person to call the coastguard themselves. At 7.50am the contact person told us that the group would be transferred to the Greek island of Chios by the Greek military.

At 10.30am a contact person forwarded a screenshot with coordinates to the Alarm Phone via Facebook. The location shown was close to the Greek island of Samos but still in Turkish territorial water. The contact person asked us to call the Turkish coastguard and so we did. Additionally we informed both the Greek and the UNHCR via email. Only a few minutes afterwards, we received a confirmation from our contact person that the group of travellers had been rescued.

At 1.10pm we were alerted to a boat in distress between Turkey and Lesvos, the coordinates and phone number of which were forwarded to us by several contact persons. We tried to call the boat several times but either the phone was busy or no one picked up. At 2.36pm we received the confirmation by a contact person that the group had safely arrived on the Greek island of Lesvos.