Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 27th of August 2019

Case name: 2019_08_27-CM186
Situation: 100 travellers dead and missing
Status of WTM Investigation: unconfirmed
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean, Libya

Summary of the Case:

On August 27th at 03.34 am CEST the Alarm Phone received a call from a satellite phone. The person informs us that they departed from Al Khums 3 hours earlier. The engine of their nylon boat, which carrying up to 100 people, stopped. The travellers stated that people have died already. Our shift team asked for a GPS position and also sent instructions via SMS to their satellite phone but the Alarm Phone didn‘t receive it. Last contact with the boat was 03:54 am CEST, they shouted “come to near Khums” into the phone. We emailed to MRCC Rome and the so-called Libyan Coastguard at 04.13am CEST. When we tried to reach the authorities in Libya by phone, all given numbers were first not reachable. Finally we reached one person on duty, who was not able to communicate in english or french. At 10 am an Arabic speaking member of Alarm Phone finally spoke to someone of the so-called Libyan Coastguard but without clear results. Only 3 hours later the Alarm Phone were told that they found the shipwreck and detected about 90 people. Many have drowned. It is still unclear, how many have died, and how many survived.