About 200 travellers in distress on a boat off the Libyan coast, rescued

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 17th of May 2016
Case name: 2016_05_17-CM61
Situation: About 200 travellers in distress off Libya, rescued
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Tuesday the 17th of May 2016, at 11.35am, our shift team was called by a contact person who passed on the phone number of a group of 191 Syrians who were on a boat that had left from Libya about 5 hours earlier and were moving toward Malta. The phone was not reachable anymore and the contact person also did not have information about the location of their departure. Our shift team then tried to call the boat but without success. We checked their phone credit online and they had sufficient credit to make calls. At 12.40pm we contacted the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Rome and informed them about the case. At 2.06pm, we received another call from the contact person but communication was difficult and then the contact was interrupted. At 2.46pm MRCC Rome confirmed that they were working on the case but refused to pass on more information. Later in the afternoon, the Italian coastguards tweeted about the rescue of 200 people, including 45 women and 11 children. At 5.45pm we contacted MRCC Rome and they confirmed the rescue of the boat in question.