Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 19th of January 2016

Case name: 2016_01_19-WM76
Situation: Boat in distress between Tetouan/Morocco and Ceuta/Spain; rescued by Moroccan police
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Tuesday the 19th of January 2016 at 7.46am the Alarm Phone was called from a Moroccan phone number and alerted to a boat in distress in the Western Mediterranean Sea. We were provided with a phone number of the travellers on board and called them immediately afterwards. We reached them at 7.51am and learned that the boat had left from Tetouan/Morocco, with 15 persons on board, among them 2 women. The boat’s engine had stopped and the travellers were not able to move on. Thus, they asked us to alert the Moroccan coastguard, as they were still in Moroccan territorial waters. We called the Moroccan Marine at 8.03am and forwarded all information we had obtained from the travellers. 20 minutes later we called the travellers again and learned that the coastguard had not arrived yet. They were still close to the Moroccan coast and we asked them to stay calm and wait. In the following three hours we were neither able to reach the travellers nor the contact person again. At about 9am we talked to the Moroccan Marine again and were told that they had started a rescue operation. We were asked to call back later, in order to obtain a confirmation of rescue. In another conversation with the Moroccan Marine at about 10am we were told that their rescue vessel had arrived in the area in question. At 11.55am we learned that the rescue vessel had not been able to find the boat in distress. Shortly afterwards, at 12.03am, we were able to reach the contact person again, who had alerted us to the boat in the very beginning. He confirmed to us that the Moroccan police had rescued the boat at around 10am and that the travellers had been brought to the Gendarmerie in Tetouan/Morocco. They were all fine, but the phone of one of the women had been confiscated. Afterwards we informed Manos Solidarias, a NGO based in Tetouan and asked them to try to establish contact to the travellers. Later on they informed us that they were not able to meet the travellers at the Gendamerie. Without knowing the travellers’ names they were not provided with any further information on their situation.