Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 21st of February 2019
Case name: 2019_02_21-AEG487
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to two groups of travellers in the Aegean, one group rescued to Turkey, the other rescued to Samos.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Thursday 21st of February the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to two groups of travellers in distress in the Aegean region. One boat in urgent distress close to the Turkish coast was rescued and brought to Turkey, and a group of travellers stranded on the Greek island Agathonisi was rescued by the Greek coast guard and brought to Samos.

At 0.47am CET our shiftteam was alerted to a group of 34 people, including four children, who were stranded on Agathonisi. We managed to reach the group, and at 1am we informed the Greek coast guard about the situation. However, after this point we were no longer able to reach the travellers. At 3.11am we spoke to the Greek coast guard again, who told us that the location of the travellers was inaccessible by car, and that they therefore had to pick them up by boat. Only at 1.34pm did we manage to get the information from the Greek coast guard that the travellers had been rescued and brought to Samos, which was confirmed by the contact person later in the afternoon.

At 4.18am our shift team was alerted to a boat close to the Turkish coast in urgent distress. We immediately reached the boat, but communication was difficult as people were panicking. However, we managed to obtain the position of the travellers. At 4.23am we called the Turkish coast guard and passed on the information we had. Less than half an hour later the coast guard informed us in a second call that they had rescued the travellers and brought them back to Turkey. This was shortly after confirmed by the contact person.