Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 14th of July 2017

Case name: 2017_07_14-WM148
Situation: 2 boats in distress in the Western Mediterranean Sea,
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Friday, the 14th of July 2017, we were alerted to 2 cases in the Western Mediterranean Sea.
Case 1: At 5.36 am a contact person alerted us to one boat, carrying 11 persons that had left from Morocco around 2am. At 7am, the contact persons asked us to inform the Coastguard about the boat. We reached out to the travellers and they told us that they could see a ship of Salvamento Maritimo (S.M.). On Marinetraffic we could see a ship by S.M. waiting on the sea border. Our contact person told us that S.M. was looking for two boats, one that had left Morocco around the same time as the boat we were in touch with. Around 8am, it seemed that S.M. was performing a rescue operation - probably of the other boat, as the travellers on 'our' boat had lost sight of the S.M. boat. At 8.50 we called S.M. They already knew about the 2 boats, and had also been in touch with the travellers on 'our boat. However, they could not locate them. They also told us about a boat with 7 people that had been picked up by the Moroccan Navy during the night. t 9.25 we talked to S.M. again, They now seemed to have a better idea of where to find the boat and were heading into that direction. Half an hour later, at 10am, however the S.M. boat turned around and headed back to Spain. As we learned from the travellers later, they were picked up by the Marine Royal and taken back to Morocco.
Case 2: At 1pm, a contact person informed us about 26 women who had left Morocco during the night to Spain and who had stranded on a Spanish military island, close to El Hoceima, Morocco. His last contact with the women had been at about 5am local time so about 7 hours earlier. He told us that he would try to find out more about the women's situation and call us back. At 2.30pm we learned through a media article that the Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras was also in touch with the women and that the case was thus already known. We tried several times to get in touch with the women, but could not reach them. At 4.30pm our contact person told us that the group had most probably been transferred to the Spanish enclave of Melilla. We contacted a friend in Melilla and asked him to check whether the women had arrived there. At 7pm, Helena Maleno Garzon from Caminando Fronteras posted on facebook that a convoi with 26 women and 5 children would be transferred from Isla de Mar to Melilla. On Saturday morning, our contact from Melilla confirmed that the group of women and children had safely arrived in Melilla.