Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 13th of March 2016

Case name: 2016_03_13-AEG233
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 4 distress cases in the Aegean - near Lesvos, Samos and Chios
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Sunday, the 13th of March 2016, the Alarm Phone was alerted to 4 cases of distress in the Aegean Sea. 2 cases of distress near Lesvos reached us in the early morning hours: one involved 60 travellers. They eventually made it to the Greek island on their own. In the second case, 55 travellers were in distress as they were facing high waves in an inflatable boat. The Greek Coastguard rescued them. Alerts about the other two distress cases reached us on Sunday evening. In one case two women stranded on a rocky part of Samos. Doctors without borders picked them up. The fourth case was a distress case at sea near Chios. Again the travellers were in panic because of high waves. However, they reached land by themselves.

Case 1: At 4.58am we received a Facebook message about a boat in distress, carrying about 60 persons, South of Lesvos. We reached out to the travellers. The man who answered the phone made clear that they were in urgent distress. Water was entering the boat. We could hear panicky voices and many children crying in the background. At 5.04am we informed the Greek Coastguard about the case via phone and e-mail. At 5.12am we sent a message to the boat that help was underway. At 5.14am we called the travellers again, but there was a lot of noise, mostly people crying, so that we could have no conversation. At 5.20am we sent a WhatsApp message to a second number of people on the boat, but the message was not read. At 5.34am we called the boat again. They were relieved, because they had reached land - apparently without any help. At 5:38am we sent an email to the Greek Coastguard informing them that the travellers had reached land. We also passed on the good news to the contact person. The contact person wrote us later that the travellers had seen a small red boat that had directed them the way to the shore. The travellers thought that the red boat belonged to the Coastguard, but apparently it did not.

Case 2: At 6:34am, the person who had contacted us about the first case, again sent us an alert via Facebook about an inflatable boat with 50 travellers heading to the Southeast of Lesvos. At 6.50am we informed the Greek Coastguard as well as ProActiva about the case. Proactiva said that they would take care of the case, because the Coastguard seemed to be very busy. We told the contact person that help was underway and sent WhatsApp messages to the travellers. We tried to reach the travellers, but none of the three numbers we had of people on board worked. At 7.47am we called ProActiva. They had no news, but said that they were working on the case. At 11:25am we finally talked to one of the people who had been on board. He explained that they had reached their destination and that he was in a camp. At 11.49am we contacted ProActiva about the case, who said that probably the Coastguard had rescued the travellers. At 2.50pm, we talked to another traveller, who had been on board and he confirmed that the Greek Coastguard had rescued them.

Case 3: Later on Sunday, at 6:44pm we received a third Facebook alert - this time about a group stranded on Samos. We reached out to the people on Samos and talked to a woman. She said that there were only two of them - herself and her daughter. She spoke very good English so the communication was easy. They were not in urgent distress, but they were trapped between rocks and could not get out by themselves. We told her to wait and promised to call for help. At 6:52pm, we called Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) on Samos, because they coordinate the rescue of people stuck on the beaches. They noted the position of the two women and their telephone number. They said that they would inform the port police to figure out with them who would pick up the two. We informed both our Facebook contact person and the women on the island that we had informed MSF. The women sent us their position again - they had not moved. We kept in touch with the women throughout the next two hours. After 8pm, we could not reach them anymore, apparently their phone was switched off. At 8:47pm we called MSF on Samos, but no-one answered the phone. However, a few minutes later MSF called us back. They informed us that they had picked the women and that they were doing fine.

Case 4: At 9:18 pm, we received a fourth Facebook alert about a group of 55 persons (30 women 15 men 10 children) in distress (because of high waves) near Chios. We reached out to the travellers. They sent us their updated position, clearly showing them in Greek waters. At 9:29pm we called the Greek Coastguard, who asked us to tell the travellers to call them directly and/or to call 112. At 9:35pm we sent a WhatsApp message to the boat telling them to call directly the coastguard. They read the message but did not reply. At 9:36pm we sent an e-mail about the case to the Coastguard and the UNHCR. At 9:58pm the Greek Coastguard called us back. They wanted to confirm the information on the case, because it did not fit with the details they had. We promised to check with the travellers on their latest position. At 10:05pm we received an updated position from the boat, which we passed on to the Greek Coastguard. Several times we tried to reach the travellers on board around midnight, but without success. At 1:42am, our contact person on the boat wrote that they had made it to 'Yunan' (Greece). Everybody was fine.