29/12: 1 group of travellers stranded on Symi, Greece and another group stranded near Karakoy Mahallesi/Cesme, Turkey

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 29th of December 2018
Case name: 2018_12_29-AEG475
Situation: 1 group of travellers stranded on Symi, Greece and another group stranded near Karakoy Mahallesi/Cesme, Turkey
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: In the early hours of Saturday the 29th of December 2018 the Alarm phone shift team was alerted to two groups stranded in the Aegean. The first was a group of 20 travellers (including 7 women and 7 children) who were stranded on Symi island. They were rescued at dawn by the Greek coastguard. The second group of 18 travellers (including 8 women and 6 children) tried to walk back to Turkey near to Karakoy/Cesme. Of the women, one was pregnant and two were elderly, and the children were freezing. They were unable to make it on foot to the nearest village. We alerted the Turkish coastguard who picked them up a few hours later.
At 2:28am the Alarm phone shift team was alerted to a group of 20 people (including 7 women and 7 children) who were stranded on Symi island. The group provided us with their GPS coordinates which we gave (along with contact numbers for the group) to the Greek coast guard. We received an update at 6:30am that the Greek coastguard had picked up the group, and sent us a video evidencing this.
At 2:31am we were alerted to a group of 13 travellers stranded in Turkey who were unable to walk further because of the cold. At 3:15am we contacted the Turkish coast guard who recorded the information we gave them, but were confused on the number of travellers as they had already been alerted to this group but had been provided with a different number of travellers (30). After confirming details with the group of travellers with the assistance of a translator, we were able to update the Turkish coast guard at 3:30am. At 6:42am we received information from a contact person that the Turkish police had arrived to the travellers.