Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations - 16th of August 2015

Case name: 2015_08_16-AEG44
Situation: Group of women and children stranded on Nimos Island/Greece
Status of WTM Investigations: Concluded, rescue presumed
Place of Incidents: Aegean Sea

Summary of the case: On Sunday the 16th of August 2015, in the late afternoon, the Alarm Phone was contacted by Nawal Soufi’s activist collective and alerted to a distress case on Nimos Island/Greece. They were 5 women and 2 babies who had arrived on the island about two and a half hours earlier. They were unable to walk and had run out of food and water. One of the babies needed urgent medical care. We contacted the Greek coastguards on Rhodes Island and passed on the details, including a phone number and their GPS position. The Hellenic Rescue Team said that they would look into the case and also the authorities in Rhodes stated that they would contact the port police on Symi Island, the closest island to the uninhabited island of Nimos. A few hours later the port authorities on Symi Island confirmed that they knew of the group and said that there were 20-30 people on Nimos Island. They had been able to transfer about half of the group to Symi already. Later we were told that even more, around 60 people, had been transferred from Nimos to Symi, including many women, children and newborn. While we cannot fully verify whether the group in question was amongst them, their rescue can be presumed.