Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 7th of November 2015
Case name: 2015_11_07-AEG122
Situation: 5 cases, near Kastellerizo, Agathonisi, Ro, Pserimos‬‬‬‬
‬‬Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Saturday the 7th of November 2015, the Alarm Phone was alerted to 5 cases of travellers stranded on the Greek islands Kastellerizo, Agathonisi, Ro, and Pserimos‬‬‬‬. In three cases, the travellers had to withstand the cold and persevere without food and water for many hours, but eventually they were picked up. In one case, the travellers were not in a situation of distress and in another the Greek coastguard picked them up, without us having to intervene.

Early on Saturday morning we received a voicemail message from a contact person about 10 persons stranded in a deserted area of Kastellorizo (case 1). One child could not move his leg and the group had been on the island without help for more than four hours. The Greek coastguard was informed, but did not want to assist the group, as they were on land, in the case of which the coastguard is not responsible. We reached out to the group and they told us that they were not 10, but 13 persons with 2 children. They sent us their current position. We advised them to call 112, but also called the local police ourselves. The person on duty in the local station was very cooperative, but exhausted as he had been working for 15 hours already with three other colleagues, dealing with more than 100 arrivals since the day before. He said that the group would have to arrive on their own, as they had no capacities to go look for them. We told him that one person was not able to move, but we still called back the group telling them that they would have to somehow take along the person, who could not walk with them to the police station. A bit later, we called back the local police and he gave us the number of the port authority, as we insisted that the group was not able to move from the beach by themselves. At 8.25am we informed the port authorities, who were already informed about the case and promised to help them, even though they were working on several other cases already. We informed the group that help would arrive some time. At noon however, the help had still not arrived. The local police told us that the rescue operation was ongoing. In the afternoon, we managed to talk to the group again and understood that they had been picked up.

At 8.25am we received a Facebook message about a group of 26 persons with 8 children and a pregnant woman stranded on Ro (case 2). They had tried to call 112, but had not reached anyone. We contacted the group and they told us that they had been on the island since 4.30am. They were freezing, and had difficulties in keeping especially the children warm. They had informed the Greek coastguard, but the answer had been to 'be patient'. When we talked to the coastguard we got the same answer and the coastguard told us that several persons had called them about the case already, but that they did not have the capacities to help at the moment. We thus stayed in touch with the travellers, trying to keep their hopes up. Around noon the travellers were still stuck on the island. We called the coastguard again and they told us that a boat was now on the way to the island. Then we lost contact with the travellers until 5pm, when they told us that they had still not been picked up. We immediately called the Greek coastguard, who said that they had sent a boat, but that they had not been able to reach the group, because of the bad weather conditions. At 6.30pm we received from several contact persons the confirmation that the group had been picked up and brought to Greece.

At 9.30pm we received a message about 37 persons lost on the island Meyisti, Kastellorizo (case 3). We reached them and they told us that they were too afraid of pushbacks to call 112 themselves. We thus reached out to the local police, who promised us to search for the group. The next morning, the contact person informed us that the group had been picked up and taken to the police station.

The Alarm Phone was also alerted to 2 other cases on Saturday, in which we did however not intervene. In one case we were alerted to 38 persons stranded on the island Agathonisi, but when we called them they told us that they were in an inhabited area and not in need of help. In another case we received a Facebook alert about people stranded on Pserimos, but they were picked up by the Greek coastguard, without our intervention.