Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 21st of September 2015

Case name: 2015_09_21-AEG77
Situation: 6 distress calls in the Aegean Sea, near the Greek islands of Samos, Chios and Lesvos
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Monday, the 21st of September 2015, the alarm phone was alerted to 6 distress cases in the Aegean Sea, mostly near the Greek islands of Samos, Chios and Lesvos.

At 4.20 am, the Alarm Phone phoned by a contact person about a 1st distress case near Samos, Greece with 55 persons involved. We could not establish direct contact with the passengers, but called the Greek coastguard, who said that they were already informed about the case. At 8 am, we contacted the coastguard again to find out, whether they had rescued the boat, but they would not give us any information, since they were too busy working on other cases. When our contact person tried to obtain information about the boat with the coastguard, the coastguard told them that they had closed the case, since they had concluded that it was a fake call. Only at 5pm in the evening, our contact person told us that the travellers had most probably reached Greek land on their own.

At 5.38 am we were informed about 2nd distress case by a contact person from Germany. He told us that his brother and other persons with their children had left Izmir 3 hours earlier in a small rubber boat into the direction of Chios. We immediately reached out to the travellers and heard panicky voices, but could not get a proper connection. We thus sent a WhatsApp message telling them to get in touch with the Greek coastguard, as we did not have their exact position. We also sent an e-mail to the Greek coastguard. At 6.30 the contact person called us again, as he had not heard anything from his brother. He passed us another contact of a person on the boat. Again we tried to reach out to the boat via the new contact and passed on the number to the coastguard. At 8am, the contact person finally confirmed that his brother and all other travellers had been rescued by a tourist boat. We send him information about the situation in Greece to pass it on to his brother.

At 7am, we received an alert from a Swedish solidarity group about a 3rd boat in urgent distress, carrying around 70 travellers, located between Özdere, Turkey and Samos, Greece. The Turkish coastguard is already informed, so we only sent out an e-mail to both the Turkish and the Greek coastguard. One hour later, neither we, nor the Swedish solidarity network has any confirmation about a rescue. We thus called the Turkish coastguard, who told us that the rescue operation was ongoing and to call back later. Throughout the next hours, we tried many times to contact both the travellers and obtain information from the coastguard, without success. Only in the evening, at 7.30 pm, the Turkish coastguard informed us that they had gone out to look for the boat, but had not found anything. We could thus not obtain any information concerning the situation of the travellers.

At 2pm, the Alarm Phone was informed about a 4th distress case in Turkish waters. We received and audio message in Arabic and coordinates, but they were outdated, as the distress call had been sent at 11am. At 3:50 pm we received another audio record from the travellers through the contact person. They said that they had safely arrived in Greece. We then also reached them directly and they told us that they had arrived safely in Mytilene.

Just after 3 pm, the shift team was informed about a 5th distress case of a boat with 30 passengers going into the direction of Lesvos, Greece. Again they sent their SOS through an audio record. Both the contact person and the shift team informed the coastguard about the case. At 5:41 we received the confirmation that all travellers had been rescued by the Greek coastguard.

The 6th and final alert of the day reached us at 10.22pm. A contact person forwarded us the position of a boat and the request to inform the Greek coastguard. We thus informed the Greek coastguard, who were cooperative and said that they would get in touch with the travellers directly. One hour later, we received a WhatsApp message by the contact person, informing us about the rescue of the boat by the Turkish coastguard. We were astonished that the Turkish coastguard had intervened in Greek territorial waters, but we could not reach the travellers directly to ask them about the rescue operation.