Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 4th of May 2019
Case name: 2019_05_04-WM386
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 3 boats in distress. Two boats rescued by Salvamento Maritimo and brought to Spain, one pushed back to Morocco.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean

Summary of case On Saturday the 4th of May, the Alarm Phone was alerted to three boats which had departed from close to Tangier. Two of the boats were rescued but Salvamento Maritimo and brought to Spain, whilst one boat was pushed back to Morocco by the Moroccan navy after having entered Spanish territorial waters.


At 5.50 am CEST we were alerted to a boat with 12 travellers that had left from near Tangier the previous night and were rowing towards Spain. At 6.40 am CEST our shift team managed to establish contact with the people on the boat, the travellers were very tired and worried about one of the passengers, an 8 months pregnant woman. We called back several times to ask for a GPS position, but the connection was bad. At 07.34 am CEST the travellers informed us that they had been rescued by Salvamento Maritimo.

At 6.40 am CEST we received a message from a contact person informing us of a boat with 12 people, including one woman, who had left from near Tangier earlier in the morning. We tried to call the boat several times and on different numbers and finally established contact at 09:51 am. The travellers told us that they had been intercepted by the Moroccan Marine Royale as they were already in Spanish waters. They sent us their position at the time of interception, and it corresponded to a location in Spanish territorial waters.


At 09:40 CEST a contact person alerted us to a boat in distress with 11 travellers. Soon after we managed to establish contact with the boat, they sounded distressed and told us that they were very sick. They told us they were in a zodiac boat and claimed to be near Spain. The contact person later sent us the GPS position of the boat. At 10:08am we alerted Salavemento Maritimo. At 10.25 am Salvamento Maritimo called us back asking for a phone number on the boat. They informed us that they had sent an asset which was already close to the position. They also told us that they had alerted MRCC Rabat. Twice we received new GPS coordinates from our contact person and other phone numbers of travellers on the boat, and we immediately updated Salvamento Maritimo. Finally at 12:02 we received confirmation from the travellers that they had been rescued by Salvamento Maritimo.