Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations - 11th of August 2015

Case name: 2015_08_11-AEG38
Situation: Three vessels in distress in the Aegean Sea, 1 rescued by Turkey, 2 by Greece
Status of WTM Investigations: Concluded
Place of Incidents: Aegean Sea

Summary of the case: On Tuesday the 11th of August 2015, shortly after midnight, Nawal Soufi’s activist collective informed our Alarm Phone shift team about a group in distress in the Aegean Sea and passed on their GPS position as well as a phone number. We were able to reach the travellers directly and they were very clearly panicking and in a dangerous distress situation. We immediately turned to the Greek coastguard which denied responsibility as the vessel was still located in Turkish waters. We then turned to the Turkish coastguards who knew of the case already and said that the vessel was still moving toward the island of Chios. They said that they would get in touch with the passengers themselves. At about 00:30am we received updated coordinates from the travellers and a message urging us to send rescue vessels to them as quickly as possible. A few minutes later the Turkish coastguard stated that they were at the limit of their rescue capacities. They also informed us that the weather was very rough at the moment so that the travellers should not proceed toward Chios but wait for rescue at their current position. When we could not reach them directly, we passed these information on to them via WhatsApp. Then, for several hours, the group could not be reached. At 2:50am, the Turkish authorities confirmed that the group had been rescued from their vessel that was on the verge of capsizing.

At approximately 7.23am, the Alarm Phone was contacted by Nawal’s collective again and alerted to another emergency situation in the Aegean Sea. They informed us about a group travelling from Turkey to the Greek island of Samos and passed on a mobile phone number as well as the GPS position of the travellers. The emergency seemed very acute with travellers repeatedly stating that they were drowning. We immediately informed the Greek coastguards who promised to look into the situation. At 9.15am, the Greek authorities confirmed that they had rescued 4-5 vessels in the same area. At first, we were unable to verify the rescue of the group in question as their mobile phone was off. However, soon afterwards, we learned that the people had been rescued and were safe.

The same activist collective informed us about a third distress case in the Aegean Sea and, again, passed on coordinates as well as a phone number. The vessel was south of the Greek island of Chios. When speaking to the Greek coastguards they were willing to look into the situation while also stating that they had many ongoing emergency cases in the region. The travellers themselves could not be reached. We then learned that they were a group of approximately 45 people, amongst them children and at least one old woman. The travellers then repeatedly called us and it was clear that they were in great danger. The Greek coastguard then confirmed that a rescue vessel was on its way to the vessel and asked us to inform the passengers to make signals to draw attention to them. The Greek authorities then confirmed the rescue of the group about two hours later.