Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 7th of April 2016

Case name: 2016_04_07-WM88
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 1 emergency situation in the Western Med
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Med

Summary of the Case: On Thursday the 7th of April 2016, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to a group of 10 people who were on their way to Tarifa/Spain. At 9.06am, we received a call from a woman who informed us that she was on a boat moving toward Tarifa. She was part of a group of 10 people, 5 men, 4 women and 1 boy. They had left about an hour earlier but it was not clear where exactly they had departed from. She said that she was able to see buildings and mountains ahead. After the initial phone call, we tried to reconnect several times, without success. Due to that fact that we had no confirmation of their location and only partial information about their situation, our shift team decided against reaching out to the authorities straight away. At 10.26am we came through to the boat-people but the line was interrupted before we could speak to them. A minute later they called back but due to connection problems, we were unable to hear anything. We also reached out to our contact persons in Tangier, to ask whether a group of that size had embarked on a journey. We learned that a group had successfully reached Spain already but the size of that group did not match ‘our’ group. Several hours later, at 1pm, we then reached out to the Spanish search and rescue agency Salvamento Maritimo to enquire whether they had knowledge of any vessels in distress in the area. They confirmed that they had rescued one vessel, the one which did not match the size of the group in question. They also stated that the Moroccan Navy had rescued a vessel. We then turned to the Moroccan authorities at 1.25pm but the officers informed us that they had in fact not rescued any vessel and the only vessel in distress had been rescued by Salvamento Maritimo. While trying to reach the people on the boat for several hours, as well as on the following day, we were not able to re-establish contact with them. It could be that the initial information about the number of people on the boat was wrong and that it was, in fact, the vessel that had been rescued by Salvamento Maritimo.