‪Case name: 2015_10_14-WM64‬‬
Situation: 2 Boats intercepted by Moroccan Navy
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: ‪On Wednesday, the 14th of October 2015, the Alarm Phone was alerted to two cases in the Western Mediterranean. Both boats were intercepted by the Moroccan Navy.‬‬ While in many cases the cooperation between the Spanish and teh Moroccan authorities leads to an interception of boats through the Moroccan Navy, in the second case described below, the lack of cooperation and communication between Morocco and Salvamento Maritimo put the lives of the travellers in danger.
At 1pm, the Alarm Phone shift team was informed about a boat with 87 adults and 1 child on board, who had left Morocco at 2am. At 2pm we reached the travellers and they told us that they had been intercepted by the Moroccan Navy.
A 2.11pm we received two calls about a 2nd case in the Western Mediterranean. The contact persons told us about a boat carrying approximately 10 persons who had left from El Hoceima. We reached out to the travellers and they told us that there were about 30 persons on board and that they had left on Tuesday at 8pm. They also said that water was entering the boat. One of the contact persons had already informed the Moroccan coastguard, but the travellers told us that the boat was in Spanish waters. We thus called Salvamento Maritimo, who promised to forward the information to the coastguard in Almeria and who sent, half an hour later, a helicopter to search for the boat. The Spanish helicopter did not encounter the boat in Spanish waters and, as Salvamento Maritimo told us later, they were not given the permission to search on the Moroccan side, because the Moroccans were doing military exercises. The Moroccan authorities on the other hand, told our contact person that the Spanish coastguard was taking care of the case. At 9.13pm we finally reached the travellers. They said that they were not able to send coordinates, but they guessed that they were in Moroccan waters. They confirmed that they were 30 persons with 2 children and two pregnant women on board and they asked us to get help. We thus called the Moroccan coastguard again, who sent a patrol boat to look for the travellers. However, for hours they did not encounter the boat. They said that it was difficult, because it was dark already and because they had no exact position. We held contact with the travellers, their relatives in Morocco, and the coastguards. At 2am the boat had still not been found. We were now in contact with different solidarity groups among them Helena Maleno who had been twittering on the case for about ten hours. The travellers could not be reached after 2am. On Thursday morning at 10am the Moroccan coastguard told us that the Spanish now searched for the boat with an aircraft. At 12am they still had not found the boat, so they sent a second aircraft also searching in Moroccan territory. Around 2pm, Salvamento Maritimo informed us that the Moroccans had intercepted a boat in the morning, but since they were not sure, whether this was the boat with 30 persons, they continued to search. At 3pm Helena Maleno confirmed on Twitter that the travellers had been picked up by the Moroccans and brought back to Al Hoceima, where they were detained.