Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 15th of November 2015

Case name: 2015_11_15-AEG130
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 5 distress cases in the Aegean Sea
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Sunday the 15th of November 2015, the Alarm Phone was alerted to 5 emergency situations in the Aegean Sea. One group of travellers had stranded on a Greek island and was later rescued by the local police authorities and four groups were in distress at sea and were later rescued by the Turkish in one situation and by the Greek coastguards in three situations.

Our shift team was informed about the first case of distress at 3.20am via a member of a Syrian activist collective (case 1). He told us about a group of 23 people who had stranded on the Greek island of Ro. He had already informed the Greek coastguards about this group who needed support as they were stuck on the island in their wet clothes. Shortly afterwards we were able to communicate with the group directly, via WhatsApp. We told them that the Greek coastguards were informed and they told us that they were, in fact, 25 people. For several hours afterwards, the group could not be reached. At 8.45am, we contacted the Rhodes police station and they confirmed that they had rescued 37 people a few hours earlier from the island. We could not verify whether this was the group in question and when we were able to re-establish contact to the group we found out that they were still waiting for help. Amongst them were 10 children and they had run out of food and water. At 12.41pm we contacted the Rhodes police station again and they said they would look into the situation. They confirmed at 3.33pm that they had found the group and were in the process of transferring them to the island of Kastellorizo.

Only a few minutes after we were notified about case 1, another distress call came in (case 2). At first the phone connection was too bad to understand the person on the other end but at 4.15am we were able to speak to someone who informed us about a distress situation involving about 45 people. He said that the travellers’ engine had been stolen in an attack and they were adrift at sea, close to Agathonisi Island. Our contact person had already notified the Greek coastguards. We tried to reach the travellers directly several times, without success. At 6.18am we received a voice message from someone who had been on the vessel, telling us that they were at a Turkish police station and safe.

At 4.55am, the contact person of case 2 alerted us to another distress case, involving 31 people on a vessel near Samos Island who had run out of petrol (case 3). We spoke to the group directly and they confirmed that they were in distress. We then alerted the Greek coastguards who were not very cooperative and said that the refugees should contact them directly. We forwarded the phone number of the coastguards to the refugees and the Greek authorities shortly afterwards confirmed that they had received a call from them. At 6.39am our contact person confirmed that they had been rescued by the Greek coastguards.

At about 11am, we received a WhatsApp message alerting us to 35 people in distress, including 10 children and 4 women (case 4). The vessel was on its way to Lesvos Island but the GPS position that we received was already outdated. We contacted the Turkish and Greek coastguards but they said that they needed exact and recent coordinates. At 12.02pm our contact person told us that he had been informed by one of the travellers that the group had been rescued by the Greek coastguards and were already on Lesvos Island.

At 2.37pm we received another WhatsApp message, telling us about a group on a vessel near Lesvos Island (case 5). There were about 50 people, including 20 children, and their engine had broken down. We could not contact the travellers directly and then reached out to the Greek coastguards who asked us to contact the Turkish authorities as the vessel was still in their waters. At 3.02pm the Turkish coastguards confirmed that they would launch a rescue operation. We forwarded updated GPS coordinates to them at 3.51pm that we had obtained through our contact person. At about 4pm they said that they needed to reach the travellers first before launching a rescue operation. Shortly afterwards, at 4.20pm, our contact person informed us that the group had been rescued by the Greek coastguards and were safe.