Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations - 17th of August 2015

Case name: 2015_08_17-AEG45
Situation: Three vessels in distress near Greece and Turkey, rescue of all presumed
Status of WTM Investigations: Concluded
Place of Incidents: Aegean Sea

Summary of the case: On Monday the 17th of August 2015, the Alarm Phone was contacted at around 10am by Nawal Soufi’s activist collective and told about a distress situation in the Aegean Sea, between Turkey and the Greek island of Samos. We received the GPS coordinates of the vessel as well as the phone number of one of the travellers who, however, could not be reached. We then turned to the Greek coastguards on Lesvos who directed us to the Samos Port Authority. They stated that they would send a rescue boat to the location of distress. At around noon, the Port Authority reported that they could not find the vessel but would continue with the search. They told us that they already had 6-7 cases in the area around Samos Island. At approximately 2pm, they said that they could not find a vessel in the given location but that it was likely that it had been rescued earlier already when the Greek coastguards rescued up to 400 people.

Nawal’s collective alerted us to a second emergency case in the Aegean Sea, near the island of Agathonisi/Greece. We could not reach the travellers through the mobile phone number which had been passed on to us. We then turned to the Greek coastguards who confirmed that they had already rescued a vessel in a very similar position. Since this was the only vessel that had been located in this area, it can be presumed that it was the vessel that had been rescued earlier.

The activist collective informed us about a third distress situation, this time still near the Turkish coast. Once again, the travellers could not be reached. The Turkish coastguard later confirmed the rescue of the vessel in question.