Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 31st of August 2015

Case name: 2015_08_31-AEG56
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 11 distress situations in the Aegean Sea
Status of WTM Investigations: Concluded
Place of Incidents: Aegean Sea

Summary of the case: On Monday the 31st of August 2015, the Alarm Phone dealt with 11 emergency cases in the Aegean Sea. At 1.21am we were alerted by a contact person to a boat in distress, carrying more than 35 people, including women and children. We first received only a picture with unclear GPS data, but we then managed to reach the travellers directly and were finally able to locate them in Turkish waters, moving toward the Greek island of Lesvos. They told us that their engine was still running. At 2am we received the message that the boat had been rescued. Approximately forty minutes later it was confirmed that the Greek coastguards had saved them.

At 2:30am, the Alarm Phone was alerted to another boat carrying 40 persons in danger of drowning in Turkish waters, this time close to the Turkish coast. We immediately called the Turkish coastguards. They agreed to rescue and said that they could reach the vessel in distress within half an hour, as they had a coastguard boat near by. Half an hour later, we tried to reach the Turkish authorities again to inquire about the rescue operation - without success. At 3.30am they said that the rescue operation was ongoing. However, the travellers told us that they were still in an emergency situation without any help. At 4.25am we called back the Turkish coastguards, telling them that the boat had not been rescued. They told us that they had already saved 4 groups in this area and promised to search for the boat carrying 40 persons. Ten minutes later we received updated GPS coordinates from the group of travellers. When we could not reach the Turkish coastguards via the phone, we sent them an e-mail with the updated coordinates. In the morning, we tried several times to reach the Turkish authorities again, in order to have the rescue confirmed. At 10am, they confirmed the rescue of 45 persons from the position we had communicated to them. Two hours later, it was finally confirmed by our contact person that the people were rescued.

At 3.50am, the Alarm Phone was alerted to a 3rd emergency situation. A vessel with 8 persons on board was in distress near the Greek island of Kos. We immediately passed on the position and phone number of the vessel to the Greek coastguards via phone and via e-mail. In the morning, at 7.15am, we tried to reach the boat, as their rescue had not yet been confirmed. However, they neither picked up the phone, nor could we reach them via Whatsapp or Viber. We tried to call them several times and sent them a message, asking about their situation. At 00.30am, our contact person informed us that they had been saved to Greece.

At 1:44pm we received the position and number of a 4th boat north of Lesvos Island, still in Turkish territories. We were told that the boat was in danger of capsizing within one hour. We did not receive any information about the number of travellers, but were told that there were young children on board. We couldn't reach the boat ourselves, but forwarded just minutes later the phone number and coordinates to the Greek CG and informed the UNHCR Greece, UNHCR Turkey, as well as the MRCC Ankara. At 2:35pm we received a picture of the boat. Our contact person told us that the distress situation was urgent and asked us to call the Turkish coastguards which, however we could not reach. We then sent an e-mail to UNHCR Turkey and MRCC Ankara. At 3.20pm, our contact person confirmed that the Turkish authorities had rescued the group to Turkey.

Just as the rescue of the fourth boat was confirmed, we were alerted via Whatsapp to a 5th vessel in distress near Lesvos. We were told that there were 50 Syrian passengers on board, with 10 children among them. We called the Greek coastguards at 3.55pm to give them the coordinates of the boat. They promised to go to their rescue. We could not establish contact to the boat ourselves, but received only fifteen minutes later a picture of the rescue operation. At half past six, the Greek authorities confirmed that they had rescued the people and had brought them to Lesvos.

At 5.30pm in the afternoon, we were informed that a person was trying to swim to the Greek island of Samos. The person, who contacted us was in touch with the swimmer and could pass on a phone number and coordinates. We located the swimmer at about 150 meters from the Greek coast. We tried several times to reach the swimmer ourselves, but without success. At 5.50pm we reached out to the contact person again, inquiring about the situation of the swimmer, but our contact person didn't have any new information for us. Consequently we decided to call the Greek coastguards. The authorities on Rhodos forwarded us to those on Samos, who told us to call the headquarters of the Greek CG. At half past six, we were sent 2 phone numbers of the swimmer. At 6.55pm, we finally received an answer via Whatsapp: The swimmer, a refugee from Syria, had arrived safe and sound in Greece.

At 7.07pm, we were informed about a 7th emergency case in the area: We were told that people on Lesvos, Greece, had observed a boat in distress about one hour earlier. Apparently, the engine of the boat had broken down. A navy boat close by, had apparently seen the boat, but had left without helping. We immediately called the coastguards on Lesvos, who promised to look into the situation. We thus called a contact person on Lesvos, who told us that 1 1/2 hours earlier they had observed a boat drifting into the direction of Turkey until they had lost sight of it. At 7.45pm we asked the Turkish CG about the location of the vessel. They asked us for a description of the boat. Our contact persons on Lesvos told us that they had seen the people on the boat wearing red lifejackets. At 8:18pm hours we got the information that from Eftalou (around 6,7 km from the first coordinates we got) six men and one woman were seen in the water. Two hours later we wrote again to the volunteers on Lesvos, asking if they had any news about the boat or the persons in the water. At 10:41pm we were informed by our contact on Lesvos that the coastguards had picked up a boat, but it might have been a different one. Just after midnight the Greek coastguards confirmed that 7 people had been rescued by the Turkish authorities earlier that night, but they could not verify whether these were the persons in question.

Parallel to this case, at 7.20pm, we received information about an 8th distress case in the Aegean Sea. Via Whatsapp a contact person sent us the coordinates of a boat with 18 people (including one woman and 2 children), which we could locate north of Lesvos. Unable to reach the travellers on board, we called the coastguards of Lesvos Island. However, they told us that they would not search for the boat. They just hung up the phone, apparently annoyed by our frequent calls. We tried again, unsuccessfully, to reach the travellers. However at 9.30pm, in another phone conversation with the Greek coastguards they told us that they were searching for the vessel. During the night we could not obtain any further information about this distress situation. The next morning, at 10am we sent a message asking about their situation ands shortly afterwards we received an answer, indicating that the travellers were doing well but were back to Turkey.

At 8.15pm, we were informed about a 9th distress case with about 30 persons close to Lesvos. We called the Greek coastguards and passed on the information. They were not very cooperative and we could not obtain a confirmation that they would launch a rescue operation. At 9.30pm they did confirm that they were searching for them. In the following hour, we made several calls to the CG to receive updates about the case. We did not receive further information about the case - neither from the contact person, nor from the CGs – so this case remains one of the few cases, for which we did not manage to get the rescue confirmed.

At 9.15pm, Nawal Soufi's activist collective informed us about a boat in distress north of Lesvos. We waited to receive more information about the case. At 9.47pm we heard that there were 9 persons on board. We thus called the Greek coastguards on Lesvos Island and passed on the coordinates. Since we did not have a phone number of the travellers, we could not contact the boat directly. Nawal's collective was also not able to establish direct contact. Rescue of this vessel could not be confirmed - mainly due to the fact that a direct contact to the boat was not given.

The eleventh distress case from the Aegean Sea reached the shift team shortly before 10pm. A person calling from an Iraqi number told the shift team that a boat with 44 persons on board (5 children) was sinking. We were given coordinates and could locate the vessel north of Lesvos Island. The last contact with the travellers had been one hour earlier. The information about the same distress case also reached us through other channels - we were contacted via Whatsapp and by e-mail by different persons who forwarded the same coordinates. At 10.11pm we were able to reach the Greek authorities and they promised to launch a rescue operation. At approximately 10.30pm, our contact person informed us that the engine of the boat was working again and that the boat was not able to move on. The travellers had apparently reached Greek waters. At 11:45pm we received a message from the people on the boat with thumbs up and a picture of a map. At 10.21pm we received the final alert of the day (and it later turned out that it was an alert to the same boat as half an hour ago): a contact person gave us a phone number and the position of a boat South-east of Lesbos, carrying 40 persons, mostly children. We contacted the Greek coastguards immediately and they promised to send help. In the following half an hour we tried several times to reach the boat, but the number was busy. The contact person passed on another phone number from someone travelling on the boat, but again we did not reach anyone. At 00:40am we contacted the Greek authorities again, who asked us not to call them anymore and they just hung up. Ten minutes later we were again contacted by two different persons, informing us about the urgent distress situation of the boat, but with no new coordinates. We thus contacted the Greek coastguards again and told them that help was needed urgently, as the boat was sinking. Also in this case we could not get a final confirmation of a rescue.