Vessel carrying 11 people intercepted by Moroccan Navy between Tangier and Tarifa

19.09.2015 / 20:35 / Western Mediterranean Sea, Morocco

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigation – 18th of September 2015

Case name: 2015_09_18-WM57
Situation: Vessel carrying 11 people intercepted by Moroccan Navy between Morocco and Spain, brought back to Tangier
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: A member of the Alarm Phone was alerted to a boat in distress between Tangier/Morocco and Tarifa/Spain on the morning of Friday the 18th of September 2015. 11 travellers had left Tangier at 5am and had asked her in a direct phone call to alert the Spanish rescue organization Salvamento Maritimo in Tarifa. At 9.40am Salvamento Maritimo confirmed to the Alarm Phone that they had been in contact with this boat and had started a search and rescue operation.

From 11am onwards, the shift team established direct contact to the boat several times. The travellers were calm but still in distress and told us that the coastguard had not yet arrived. At 11.48am we learned from Salvamento Maritimo in Tarifa that the Moroccan Navy had intercepted the boat. A couple of minutes later we called the travellers again, who had indeed been brought to a police station in the port of Tangier-Med and were very upset and in a bad condition. At around noon we alerted several contact persons in Tangier and at 12.30pm they also confirmed that the 11 travellers were back in Morocco.
Credibility: UP DOWN 0
Layers »
  • Border police patrols
     
    While the exact location of patrols is of course constantly changing, this line indicates the approximate boundary routinely patrolled by border guards’ naval assets. In the open sea, it usually correspond to the outer extent of the contiguous zone, the area in which “State may exercise the control necessary to prevent infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws” (UNCLOS, art. 33). Data source: interviews with border police officials.
  • Coastal radars
     
    Approximate radar beam range covered by coastal radars operating in the frame of national marine traffic monitoring systems. The actual beam depends from several different parameters (including the type of object to be detected). Data source: Finmeccanica.
  • Exclusive Economic Zone
     
    Maritime area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea in which the coastal state exercises sovereign rights for the purposes of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, the seabed and its subsoil and the superjacent waters. Its breadth is 200 nautical miles from the straight baselines from which the territorial sea is measured (UNCLOS, Arts. 55, 56 and 57). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans
  • Frontex operations
     
    Frontex has, in the past few years, carried out several sea operations at the maritime borders of the EU. The blue shapes indicate the approximate extend of these operations. Data source: Migreurop Altas.
  • Mobile phone coverage
     
    Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network coverage. Data source: Collins Mobile Coverage.
  • Oil and gas platforms
     
    Oil and gas platforms in the Mediterranean. Data source:
  • Search and Rescue Zone
     
    An area of defined dimensions within which a given state is has the responsibility to co-ordinate Search and Rescue operations, i.e. the search for, and provision of aid to, persons, ships or other craft which are, or are feared to be, in distress or imminent danger. Data source: IMO availability of search and rescue (SAR) services - SAR.8/Circ.3, 17 June 2011.
  • Territorial Waters
     
    A belt of sea (usually extending up to 12 nautical miles) upon which the sovereignty of a coastal State extends (UNCLOS, Art. 2). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans

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