Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 26th of November 2019
Case name: 2019_11_26-WM427
Situation: Alarm phone alerted to boat in the Alboran; 73 travellers feared dead.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Tuesday the 26th of November at 1.08pm CET the Alarm Phone was alerted by a relative to a boat carrying 73 travellers, including 20 women and three minors. The boat had left from a beach close to Al Hoceima the evening before at around 11 pm CET. The relative had last spoken to the travellers at 2.20am, and was no longer able to reach them. We did also not manage to establish contact to the boat. At 1.55pm we called the Spanish Salvamento Maritimo (SM) and passed on the information we had. An hour later we called them back, and they confirmed that they were searching for boats in the area. We called them back several times during the afternoon and evening, and learned that there were several boats with similar numbers of travellers, who had left from the area between Nador and Al Hoceima. This made it difficult to obtain confirmation about whether a specific boat had been rescued, but SM kept reassuring us that they were still looking for the boat we had alerted them to. Online we were also able to monitor vessels and aircrafts operated by SM, and could follow their trajectory as they were carrying out search and rescue. At 6.15pm we called the Moroccan rescue authorities, who informed us that they had rescued one boat in the morning and were still looking for another boat. We sent a list of names of travellers on board to SM in the hope that they could confirm that the group had been rescued. Unfortunately this was not possible. As we had regular contact to SM throughout the evening and night, we learned that they managed to carry out successful search and rescue, but we could still not get a confirmation that the 73 travellers were safe. On twitter we see a post by TV Melilla about a tragedy in the Alboran from which three bodies had been recovered.
In the morning at 6.42am we saw online that the SM helicopter was searching the area. At 8.13am we called SM again. They told us that they didn’t think the 73 travellers belonged to one of the boats they had already rescued, and stated that they were still searching. Two and a half hours later they still had no news from the search operation, but confirmed that both SM and Moroccan authorities were searching. We never managed to obtain further information about the travellers, and never reached them, despite trying continuously for days. We have to fear the worst; that they add to the devastating number of people who have lost their lives in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe. It saddens and angers us to once again witness how the European border regime kills and destroys families! And it pushes us, again, to repeat our demand for safe passages for everyone! Our solidarity and thoughts are with the families and friends of those missing.