Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 24th of November 2015

Case name: 2015_11_24-AEG138
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 7 cases of distress near Lesvos, Chios and Nera, active in 3 cases
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Tuesday the 24th of November 2015 the Alarm Phone was alerted to 7 cases in the Aegean Sea near Lesvos, Chios, and Nera, but only became active in 3 of the cases. Of the three, two boats were rescued by the Turkish coastguard and probably brought to Turkey. In the case near Lesvos, the final rescue could not be confirmed. In those cases, in which we did not become active either help arrived without intervention, the travellers made it by themselves or we could not obtain enough intervention to undertake action.
Shortly after 1am, a contact person called the Alarm Phone about a boat with 45 passengers in urgent distress between Turkey and Lesvos (Case 1). The Turkish coastguard had already been informed, but had not yet arrived and water was already entering the boat. We called the Turkish coastguard, who confirmed that they knew about the case and that they were about to rescue. At 1:43am the contact person confirmed that the rescue operation had started.

At 9:21am we received a call from a contact person about a boat in distress north of Lesvos (Case 2). We tried calling the travellers, but could not reach them. The Greek coastguard also did not pick up the phone until one hour later. At 10.30am when we finally spoke to an office of the Greek coastguard, they said that the boat had probably already landed on Lesvos. We insisted that they should check and passed on the coordinates. To double-check we also called the RSC Mytilene, who referred us to the port authorities in Mithymna. The Mithymna port authorities told us that they would notify a boat patrolling in the area. When we called them back around 1pm they had not succeeded at encountering the boat or establishing contact with the travellers. Despite repeated attempts, we also did not manage to reach the travellers ourselves, so we could not get a final confirmation about their arrival in Lesvos.

Shortly after 11pm, a contact person called us about a boat in distress with 20 travellers on board going towards Chios (Case 3). She also sent us a WhatsApp message with a screenshot of the boat's position, but could not indicate the exact coordinates of the boat's position. The map showed the boat East of Chios, halfway between Turkey and Chios, but what seemed to be Greek waters. A few minutes later, we received several WhatsApp messages from the travellers, in which they were asking for help, as their engine had broken down. At 11.30 pm we informed the Greek coastguard about the case. Both the coastguard and we tried calling the travellers, but could not reach them. At midnight we sent an Email with all the information we had to the Greek coastguard and urged them to search for the boat. At 2.30am the Greek coastguard told us that the Turkish coastguard would take care of the case. We thus tried to contact the Turkish coastguard, but all of our attempts to join them remained unsuccessful, so we also sent them an e-mail. The next morning at 8:45am we finally reached the Turkish coastguard and they confirmed to us the rescue of two boats close to the Chios with respectively 19 and 21 travellers on board. All of them had been brought to Turkey.

Besides these three cases, in which the shift teams became active, the Alarm Phone was also alerted to 4 other cases: Between 5am and 6am, we were informed about two boats in distress on the way to Chios (cases 4 and 5). In both cases we did not have to intervene, as other solidarity groups were already involved and had informed the coastguards and both boats were eventually rescued by the Greek coastguard. At 9am several alarm phone members and other contact persons alerted the shift team to a group of stranded travellers on Nera (case 6). However, we did not have to intervene, as the police had found them by 11:20am. As we learned form several WhatsApp messages from contact persons, the group was first taken to the local police station and then brought to Samos. Finally, at noon we received an alert about 45 travellers on the way to Mytilene, who had problems with their engine.