Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 29th of September 2019

Case name: 2019_29_09-CM198
Situation: 32 travelers rescued by Armed Forces of Malta
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean

Summary of the Case:
On September 29, the Alarm Phone received a call from a satellite phone around 05:25pm CEST. They stated to have 32 travelers on board. 15 women in total, amongst them 4 women with babies, 2 pregnant woman and 7 children. They told the shift team they left from Zuwarah, Libya. RCC Malta and MRCC Rome were alerted at 05:42pm CEST to the case. The Alarm Phone afterwards uploaded the credit of the satellite phone, so the travelers were able to communicate. From now on until the next day around 09:00am CEST, the shift team lost contact to boat. Nevertheless, we tried hard to get any information from the authorities, but RCC Malta refused to give out information on rescue proceedings or even to answer the phone.
On September 30, in the morning the Alarm Phone observed that the credit of the satellite phone dropped. At 09:15am CEST we talked to the people on the boat again. They were still in distress in the Maltese SAR zone - since the day before no action had been taken to rescue them. The shift team passed the new GPS position to the authorities. At 10:45am CEST the credit dropped again so the travelers were obviously talking on the phone and still at sea. When the Alarm Phone called RCC Malta some minutes later they said „Yes, we received your message but no more info. It‘s a very busy day.“ The shift team decided to reach out to journalists to increase pressure. Since 09:15am CEST there had been no contact to the boat anymore. During the whole day, Malta refused to give information. In the afternoon the Alarm Phone found an article in the Times of Malta saying the boat had finally been rescued by the Armed Forces of Malta - 22 hours after they were first alerted to the distressed boat.
In the first minutes of the next day, a relative of one of the people on this boat reached out to us:
"My family was in the boat. I am really relieved. My partner and my kids are safe. I am really happy. Thank you very much."