Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 09th of October 2015

Case name: 2015_10_09-AEG94
Situation: Alarm Phone was alerted to 5 boats in distress near the Greek islands of Lesvos, Samos and Chios
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Friday the 9th of October 2015 the Alarm Phone dealt with five emergency situations in the Aegean Sea, near the Greek island of Chios, Lesvos and Samos. While the Turkish coastguard rescued one boat and returned the travellers to Turkey, one boat arrived on Lesvos on its own. In one case a group of travellers stranded on the Greek island of Samos and in two cases rescue cannot be confirmed because the Alarm Phone was not able to re-establish contact to the travellers.

At 10.30am the Alarm Phone was alerted to a boat in distress, whose engine was stolen on its way to the northern shore of Lesvos (case 1). The boat was still in Turkish territorial waters, with 36 travellers on board, among them several children. The travellers had already called 112. Together with our informant we decided to call the Turkish coastguard only if the travellers asked for doing so. At 11am the contact person informed us, that the Turkish coastguard had already rescued the boat and returned the travellers back to Turkey.

In the early afternoon, at 2.15pm, we received two phone numbers of a group of travellers who had stranded at the eastern shore of the Greek island of Samos (case 2). They had arrived there 9 hours ago and were in need of help. We talked to the group and learned that two women of the group of 50 persons were very sick and in urgent need of water. They had already called 112 but did not reach anybody. At 2.45pm we informed both the Greek coastguard in Piraeus and the UNHCR in Greece about the case and asked for immediate help. Five minutes afterwards the group informed us that one woman had fainted. We forwarded this information to the port authorities on Samos and to the local police in several phone calls. At 4.20 the UNHCR informed us that the fire brigade and the coastguard had located the group and started a rescue operation.

In the evening of that day a contact person alerted us to a boat in distress 2.5 kilometres off the northern shore of Lesvos (case 3). We called the coastguard in Mytilini on Lesvos and forwarded the coordinates and phone number of the travellers to them. One hour after the initial alert the contact person informed us that the travellers had safely arrived on land.

Beyond that, in the early morning we were alerted to two boats, to which we were not able to establish contact. At 6.25am we received a WhatsApp message from a contact person, informing us about a boat in distress on its way to Chios/Greece (case 4). Our informant had lost contact to the group 30 minutes earlier and the coordinates he forwarded to us were still in Turkish territorial waters. Despite continuous attempts we were not able to re-establish contact.

At 6.30am the same contact person informed us about a boat in Turkish waters on its way to the Greek island of Samos (case 5). We immediately called the travellers on board, but communication was very difficult, we only heard people shouting and babies crying. Afterwards, at 6.50am, the contact person forwarded a picture to us, showing another vessel that was heading towards the boat in distress. It looked like a small rescue vessel. Despite several attempts to reach the travellers via phone or WhatsApp, we did not hear from them afterwards. They read several of our WhatsApp messages, but did not answer.