Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 16th of October 2015

Case name: 2015_10_16-AEG101
Situation: Two distress calls in the Aegean Sea, near Lesvos and Agathonisi
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Friday the 16th of October 2015, the Alarm Phone was alerted to two distress cases in the Aegean Sea, near Lesvos and Agathonisi.
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The Alarm Phone shift team was informed about a 1st case in the Aegean at 4am through Nawal Soufi's activist collective and the Save the Refugees solidarity group. Both referred to a posting made in an Arabic Facebook group, with a screenshot of the location of a boat, but no other information. The screenshot showed a boat located between the Turkish coast and the Greek islands of Farmakonisi and Agathonisi. Neither we, nor the contact person could establish direct contact with the travellers until the evening at 8pm. One of the travellers called us back and told us that they had been attacked and that their engine had been taken away. The attack, he said, had taken place hat 1.30am after which they had remained in the water until about 9am when the Turkish coastguard came to rescue them. They were taken back to Turkey.

After a quiet Friday morning and afternoon, a 2nd alert reached us around 7pm. A contact person sent us several numbers and the position of a boat north of Lesvos that was in distress, because their steering wheel had broken. Shortly afterwards the contact person told us that the case was solved. We nevertheless tried to contact the travellers and managed to reach them at 7.30pm. The travellers said that they were still in the boat and they could see a boat, but that they were not sure, whether this was a boat of the coastguard or not. They asked us to call the coastguard. We called the Greek authorities, but they told us that the boat was in Turkish waters. At 8.44pm the travellers tried to call us, but again had difficulties with their connection. We tried to call them back throughout the whole evening, but without success. Only on Saturday morning at 3.14am the travellers responded to our call and confirmed that they had been rescued by the Greek coastguard.