Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 9th June 2019
Case name: 2019_06_09-CM168
Situation: One boat with 100 travellers, including 5 women, one of which was pregnant, and 3 children were rescued by Maltese coastguards.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: Late at night on Sunday the 9th of June, the Alarm Phone was called by a boat in distress that had departed from Libya. The travellers told us that the boat was blue and black. As the connection was bad, we were not able to get the GPS position. For the whole night and the following morning our shift teams tried to re-establish connection with the boat. In the morning the people on board picked up a couple of times but connection was always so bad that the line was cut, and we were not able to get a GPS position or any further information. Around mid-day we were eventually able to speak to the travellers. They told us that they were 100 people on the boat. At 12.35 pm CEST we received their GPS position; they were in the Maltese Search and Rescue zone. At 12.56 pm we called the Maltese coastguard; they did not take our information but told us to write an email. We then sent an email with all the information we had to Maltese coastguard and to Colibrì (civil aerial reconnaissance mission). At 1.08 pm we spoke to the travellers again, they told us that they were hungry and thirsty, and that people were sick. They also informed us that there were 5 women and 3 children on the boat, one of the women was pregnant. At 01.23 pm Colibrì informed us that they had arrived at the GPS location the boat had sent. At 1.30pm we published a tweet informing about the case. 20 minutes later we published a new tweet informing that we were aware that #EUNAVFORMED aerial assets were in the distress area since the previous day but had not yet engaged in rescue. Around 2 pm we spoke several times with the travelers who were panicking. They told us that they could see an airplane and a white boat nearby. At 2.29 pm Colibrì informed us that they had identified the boat and urged the Armed Forces of Malta to render assistance immediately. At 02.58 pm we were informed that the travelers were being rescued by a patrol boat. At 5.25 pm we published a final tweet informing that a rescue operation had been launched by Maltese coastguard for the approximately 100 travellers in distress and that Maltese authorities we refusing to share information. At 7.14 pm Colibrì informed us that the Maltese patrol boat was handing out life vests but not taking people on board. At 7.55 pm we published a tweet with this information. At 10.10 pm UNHCR confirmed the rescue.