Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 29th of August 2018

Case name: 2018_08_29-WM320
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to emergency situations in the Western Med
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Wednesday the 29th of August 2018, our Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to 2 boats in distress in the Western Mediterranean Sea. One made it to the Spanish enclave of Melilla, the other one with 52 passengers remains missing.

Boat 1: At 1.06pm CEST, we received a direct call from a boat in distress coming from Nador/Morocco, carrying 31 people, including 4 women. They had left around 7am local time and were on a plastic boat that was in a bad condition. Among them were people who were sick. When our call was interrupted we informed the Spanish Search and Rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo (SM) to the case at 1.14pm. At 2.06pm we spoke to the travellers again and they informed us that their engine was not functioning properly. Afterwards we could not reconnect to the boat for a while and called SM at 5pm. They said that they were looking in the area with a helicopter. Though trying to call the boat every 10 minutes over several hours, we were unable to get through to them. At 8.50pm, SM informed us that they had not rescued the boat but had passed the information on to MRCC Rabat in Morocco. As they were informed about the case already, we decided to call the Moroccan authorities shortly after and they said they would reach out to the Moroccan Navy.

At 9.13pm, we were finally able to reconnect with the boat. They had still not been rescued and they could see the tanker KISBER near them, which we could locate on vessel tracking maps. At 9.40pm when we spoke to the travellers, they were anxious and said that parts of their vessel had deflated. At 9.45pm, we informed SM about the deteriorating situation. SM, however, simply rejected responsibility as the boat was presumably not located in the Spanish rescue zone. We told them that we had alerted authorities to the case over 8 hours ago and that nothing had happened since. The Spanish authorities simply stated that it was the responsibility of Morocco to rescue and that we should inform MRCC Rabat. Of course, they had been informed already but we updated MRCC Rabat again at 10.10pm. They said that the Navy would move to the location.

However, again nothing happened. At 11.27pm, the travellers told us that their boat was full of water and that they were drifting back in the direction of Morocco. At 11.30pm we updated MRCC Rabat again and again they said they would look for the boat. For many hours, we were unable to contact the travellers again. At 10.20am on the following day we received the message that the people had been able to direct their boat to the Spanish enclave of Melilla in Morocco. We are relieved that they have survived but their odyssey highlights very clearly a policy of neglect, with the Spanish and Moroccan authorities handing responsibility to each other without anyone engaging. We strongly condemn their behaviour – had the travellers lost their lives it would have been due to their inactions.


Boat 2: At 11.10pm on the 29th of August, we received a call from a contact person who informed us about a boat that had left from near Nador/Morocco and were in distress. The boat had left at 1pm and carried 52 people, among them 6 women, one of whom was pregnant. Throughout the night, we tried to reach the boat, but without success.

At 2.50pm on the 30th of August, after we received some new information about the case from our contact person, we informed SM. Several hours later, after hearing nothing new about the case, we again contacted SM. In the evening, at 8.36pm, our contact person calls us again and is worried – the pregnant woman on the boat is his wife. At 8.40pm we spoke to SM who informed us that they had rescued two boats with 55 and 57 people, but none with 52 people on board. They were still searching for the boat with the 52 we had informed them about. In the afternoon they had searched with an aircraft and two vessels. They reckoned that the boat may have drifted into Algerian waters and they informed MRCC Algiers. We spoke to MRCC Algiers at 8.50pm and the person on the line knew about the missing boat. They had searched for it and they would launch an aerial search the next morning.

The next day, 31st of August, we spoke to MRCC Algiers again at 9.10am – they said they were preparing the search operation at the moment. At 11.40am, we spoke to SM again and they had no new information about the case. When we spoke to MRCC Algiers at 4.39pm, they said that the search was still in progress. SM confirmed the ongoing search at 7.46pm. We also informed the contact person about the ongoing searches at 8.33pm.

At 00.56am, on the 1st of September, we contacted SM and they stated that there were still no news. Over the following hours, we were gathering more information about the people on the missing boat, and received some names of the travellers on board. At 2.11pm and later at 8.44pm and 11.10pm, we spoke again to SM and they had no news on the case but stated that the search was ongoing.

At 00.33am, on the 2nd of September, MRCC Algiers also confirmed that they had no news. We were able to gather some new information on the people on the boat and the phone numbers they had and passed it on to the authorities in the early evening. At 8.54pm, SM still had no new information and at 8.59pm, also MRCC Algiers had none.

On the 3rd of September, we spoke to the relevant authorities during the day and in the evening and while they were still searching for the boat, they had no news.