Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 29th of November 2019
Case name: 2019_11_29-WM429
Situation: 32 travellers on their way to the Canary Islands rescued and brought back to Dakhla.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Friday the 29th of November at around 1.15pm CET the Alarm Phone was alerted by a relative to a boat carrying 32 people, including six children and two women in labour. The boat had left from Dakhla at 1am, heading towards the Canary Islands. For a long time we were not able to establish proper communication, but at 10.46pm we reached the travellers who told us that their motor had caught fire, and they were therefore left adrift. After unsuccessfully having tried obtaining a position of the boat, at 1.38am we called the Spanish Salvamento Maritimo (SM) and forwarded the information we had. Finally, at 3.05am we managed to get a position from the boat, which showed that they were still close to the Moroccan coast. We passed on the position to both the Spanish and Moroccan rescue authorities, who confirmed that they had sent a boat from Dakhla to carry out search and rescue. At 6.13am the travellers called us and informed us that the situation was getting more urgent as water was entering the boat. This information we also forwarded to the rescue authorities in Dakhla. At 9.20am we called the Moroccan rescue authorities again, but they had no news and could only tell us that they had been searching throughout the night. The travellers informed us at 12.36pm that the situation continuously was getting worse, and that they were in immediate danger of capsizing, which we informed the rescue authorities about. Around an hour later at 1.20pm the travellers saw the Moroccan Navy, and ten minutes later the rescue operation had commenced. The following night at 0.48am the relative informed us that they had spoken to the travellers who were in the police station back in Morocco.