Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 28th of September 2019

Case name: 2019_09_28-WM418
Situation: 18 travelers left from Al Hoceima, Morocco, contact broken off, most probably rescued to Motril, Spain.
Status of WTM Investigation: Unconfirmed
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case:
On Saturday, 28th of September 2019 at 05:14am our shift team was alerted about a group of 18 travelers by a relative. They had left at Al Hoceima towards Motril at 03:00pm the afternoon before on a green polyester boat and were not reachable anymore. We did not have a GPS location.
At 05:20am CEST we called the Spanish Coastguard Salvamento Marítimo in Almería. As the line was busy, we called Salvamento Marítimo Algeciras who said they were not responsible for the region in question and we should call the Moroccan Coastguard in Tanger. Calling there they reported to us that the Coastguard of Almería seemed to be conducting a rescue at that moment. With a phone number we got from the Coastguard of Tanger, we managed to get through to Salvamento Marítimo Almería and gave them the information we had about our case. At 06:00am we talked to them again and they informed us they were searching for the boat now. At 07:25am we received the phone number of someone from the boat via a relative. At 08:35am we called the Coastguard again and were told there had been a rescue of around 20 people, including 5 children. We passed the phone number in case it might help identify if it was the same group we were investigating about. When we talked to them again at 08:55am we assumed the people they had rescued were the same as our case, because the number of people, direction of travel and type and color of boat were matching. They were brought to Motril. We informed the relative about it and asked for a confirmation from their side in case they would have news from the travelers.