112 travellers rescued by Doctors without Borders ‬

28.09.2015 / 23:26 / Central Mediterranean Sea

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 27th of September 2015

Case name: 2015_09_27-CM46
Situation: 112 travellers rescued by Doctors without Borders in the Central Mediterranean Sea
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Sunday, the 27th of September 2015, the Alarm Phone was alerted to one distress case in the Central Mediterranean. At 5.25am, the shift team received an e-mail from father Mussie Zerai about a boat carrying approximately 120 persons, including 15 children and 20 women. They had left from Libya five hours earlier. Father Zerai also sent us a Thuraya phone number of people on the boat, but no coordinates. We called the travellers and they sent us their coordinates via SMS. At 6am we called the Italian coastguard about the case. Throughout the next two hours, we kept contact with the travellers and repeatedly forwarded updated coordinates to the coastguard. At 7.25am, the travellers told us that they saw a big boat coming toward them. A few minutes later, the Italian coastguard informed us that the boat Bourbon Argos of Doctors without Borders was close to the vessel in distress and about to conduct a rescue operation. We passed on the good news to father Mussie Zerai. On Sunday evening, at 6.25pm we read in a press release of the Italian coastguard that 795 travellers had been rescued in the course of the day in seven different rescue operations. The ships Bourbon Argos and Ship Dignity I of Doctors without Borders had rescued respectively 112 and 107 migrants, according to the press statement.
Last update: 23:29 Oct 02, 2015
Credibility: UP DOWN 0
Layers »
  • Border police patrols
     
    While the exact location of patrols is of course constantly changing, this line indicates the approximate boundary routinely patrolled by border guards’ naval assets. In the open sea, it usually correspond to the outer extent of the contiguous zone, the area in which “State may exercise the control necessary to prevent infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws” (UNCLOS, art. 33). Data source: interviews with border police officials.
  • Coastal radars
     
    Approximate radar beam range covered by coastal radars operating in the frame of national marine traffic monitoring systems. The actual beam depends from several different parameters (including the type of object to be detected). Data source: Finmeccanica.
  • Exclusive Economic Zone
     
    Maritime area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea in which the coastal state exercises sovereign rights for the purposes of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, the seabed and its subsoil and the superjacent waters. Its breadth is 200 nautical miles from the straight baselines from which the territorial sea is measured (UNCLOS, Arts. 55, 56 and 57). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans
  • Frontex operations
     
    Frontex has, in the past few years, carried out several sea operations at the maritime borders of the EU. The blue shapes indicate the approximate extend of these operations. Data source: Migreurop Altas.
  • Mobile phone coverage
     
    Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network coverage. Data source: Collins Mobile Coverage.
  • Oil and gas platforms
     
    Oil and gas platforms in the Mediterranean. Data source:
  • Search and Rescue Zone
     
    An area of defined dimensions within which a given state is has the responsibility to co-ordinate Search and Rescue operations, i.e. the search for, and provision of aid to, persons, ships or other craft which are, or are feared to be, in distress or imminent danger. Data source: IMO availability of search and rescue (SAR) services - SAR.8/Circ.3, 17 June 2011.
  • Territorial Waters
     
    A belt of sea (usually extending up to 12 nautical miles) upon which the sovereignty of a coastal State extends (UNCLOS, Art. 2). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans