Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 6th of May 2016

Case name: 2016_05_06-WM92
Situation: 37 persons rescued to Almería
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Friday, the 6th of May 2016, at 11.08am, the Alarm Phone
was alerted to a boat in distress on the way from Morocco to Almería with about 34 persons on board, including 3 children and 10 women. The contact person was not on the boat, but in Morocco. He had been in contact with the boat at 10am and was not sure for how long they had been at sea. We could not establish direct contact with the travellers, as the phone connection did not work, even though we had two contact numbers from people on the boat. At 2.30pm, we contacted the Spanish maritime rescue agency Salvamento Maritimo (S.M.) in Almería about the case. They told us that they were working on another case in the area and that it might be the same case. They asked us to call them back three hours later. We told our contact person that we had informed S.M. Almería. Out contact person gave us more precise information concerning the number of people and from when and where they had left Morocco. It seemed to be the same case as the one S.M. was working on already. At 6pm S.M. informed us that they had found the boat an hour earlier about 17 miles off the Spanish island of Alborán, mid-way between Morocco and Spain. All passengers were doing well and would be brought to Almería, we were told. We forwarded the information to the contact persons, asking him to inform us once he would get the rescue confirmed by his contacts among the travellers. We also called the Red Cross and contacts in Almería to find out if the boat had really arrived there. On Saturday, at 11.20am, we came across a message of S.M. on Twitter stating that they had rescued 37 persons from a boat East of Alborán and that they had transferred them to Almería. A local newspaper in Almería also mentioned the case and the successful rescue operation.