Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 8th of November 2015

Case name: 2015_11_08-AEG123
Situation: 8 cases, Kastellorizo, Agathonisi, Ro, Farmakonisi, Lesvos‬
‬‬Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Sunday the 8th of November 2015, the Alarm Phone was alerted to 8 cases of distress in the Aegean Sea, in five cases travellers had stranded on different Greek islands and had to wait for hours in the cold, without food or water to be rescued. The coastguard was reluctant to assist in these cases, as they were busy and said that it was not in their duty to assist persons on land. However, in many cases there were no other authorities to turn to, as neither the UNHCR nor the Hellenic Rescue Team could be reached. In three cases, in which people were stranded, we did not get their rescue confirmed, in one case the travellers were saved by the local police and in another case by the Greek coastguard, the 3 boats in distress were also rescued by the Greek coastguard.

At 1:12am we received a WhatsApp message about a group of 15 persons stranded on Kastellorizo without food and water (case 1). We called the group and told them that we had located them and that they were not too far away from a village. We told them to call 112, but they were afraid. We tried to call the local police and the coastguard, but our calls did not go through, so we sent an Email to the police and the UNHCR. The next morning, we finally reached the local police, who told us that they were working on many parallel cases and had no time to verify if the group had been taken care of. Unfortunately, we could also not obtain a final confirmation from the group.

At five to 2am, we received another alert via WhatsApp about a group of 42 persons stranded on a small Turkish island. (case 2) We reached out to the group, who told us that their boat was damaged and that the Turkish coastguard was informed about their case, but not willing to help, as they were not on a boat. We thus called the Turkish coastguard, who was very cooperative and promised help, but not until daylight, as it was difficult to reach the island during the night. We also sent an Email to the coastguard and the UNHCR and informed the group that help would come in the morning. We could not obtain a final confirmation of rescue.

The same contact person who had alerted us to case 1 and 2 forwarded us another case at 4:20am about 80 persons stranded on Agathonisi (case 3). We did not communicate directly with the stranded travellers, but informed the Greek coastguard about the case. Like in the other two cases, we never received a confirmation of their rescue.

On Sunday morning, we received a Facebook alert about and a direct call from a group of 13 travellers who had stranded on Ro the night before (case 4). At 10:50am, we informed the local police, who told us that they were very busy but would send the next boat available. However, at 2.30pm when we called the local police again, they had still not sent a boat. After the first contact with the travellers, we could not reach them anymore, but at 3pm they called us back, asking desperately for help. At 4.30pm the local police told us that they had picked up the group, but when we called the group, they were panicky and desperate and told us that they were still waiting and in urgent need of assistance. We called the police immediately and they said that they would send a boat, even though the weather was extremely dangerous. We asked them to take along a doctor, as several travellers were in urgent need of medical treatment. We agreed to call them back three hours later. At 8pm and at 10pm we called the police again, but they told us that they were not able to get the group, because of the bad weather conditions. We called the police several time throughout the night. At midnight, the person on duty told us that they had picked up 17 persons from Ro. We kept on calling as we could not reach the group anymore and were not certain, whether they had really been saved. Fortunately, the next morning at 9am, one of the contact persons, who had called us about the case told us that her friends had been saved.

On Sunday afternoon, at quarter to 5pm, we were alerted to a group of 35 persons who had landed on a rocky part of Samos (case 5). They could not move from there, as they had small children and pregnant women among them. We reached out to the group, who sent us their position, which we forwarded to the port authorities of Samos. We held contact with the travellers, who told us that they had arrived two hours earlier and that some persons were ill. The person, who had first contacted us about the case forwarded us anther help request of a group of 30 persons nearby. He told them to gather so that they could more easily be picked up by the police. We sent an email to the police, saying that there were now 65 persons in need of help. At 6.30pm we finally reached the police on the phone, but they only told me that the people should call 112. We tried to call the travellers, but could not reach them anymore. Then, the police advised me to get in touch with the coastguard, who would take care of the case. We then reached out to the coastguard, who carried out the rescue operation at 3.30am in the morning, confirming to us that they had saved a lot of people with many children among them.

On Sunday evening, we were contacted by several persons about a distress case near Farmakonisi (case 6). We were given different numbers, positions and differing information regarding the number of persons on the boat, but it later turned out to be about the same boat with about 40-50 persons, which was about to capsize due to bad weather conditions. The Greek coastguard was not cooperative, so we contacted the port authorities on Samos, who took the coordinates of the boat, but told us that according the travellers should call them directly. We could not reach the travellers anymore, but at 11pm one of our contact persons told us that the travellers had safely made it to Greece. At midnight, the Greek coastguard also confirmed to us that they had rescued the boat and that the different numbers we had all belonged to travellers on that boat. The coastguard had rescued them and brought them to Farmakonisi.

At 7.30pm a contact person from Greece informed alerted us to a boat close to Farmakonisi, in which a woman was giving birth (case 7). The Greek coastguard was already informed about the case. Shortly afterwards we received a message in Arabic from the travellers. We tried calling them back several times, but only reached them at 11pm. They told us that they were about 60 or 65 persons on the boat with several children among them and the woman, who had given birth to a child. One hour later, the contact confirmed that they had been rescued.

At shortly past midnight, an Alarm Phone member transferred a distress message to the shift team (case 8). 20 persons with 7 children among them were in distress near Lesvos. We phoned the coastguard, who picked up only after the 7th attempt, but then promised to take care of the case. At 1:50am the coastguard confirmed that they had rescued a boat with 21 passengers in the position we had told them about.

Next to these eight distress cases, in which we became active, we received four other alerts or calls. In three of the cases, we received calls but could not communicate with the caller due to a bad connection and were not successful of reaching them after their call. In the other case, we received an alert on Facebook about a boat in distress, which was saved just a few minutes later.