Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 11th of January 2016

Case name: 2016_02_11-AEG206
Situation: 3 boats in distress rescued by Turkish coastguard east of Lesvos and Chios; one group stranded on Kastellorizo
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Thursday the 11th of February 2016, the Alarm Phone was alerted to three boats in distress east of the Greek islands of Lesvos and Chios. All three boats had not left Turkish territorial waters and were rescued by the Turkish coastguard. Beyond that, the Alarm Phone was in contact with a group of travellers who had stranded on the Greek island of Kastellorizo. We informed the Greek authorities and they picked up the travellers from the rocky coast.

At 3.20am, the Alarm Phone was informed via WhatsApp about a group of 16 people who had stranded on the northern shore of the Greek island of Kastellorizo (case 1). At 3.25am, we called the travellers several times but did not reach them. Also the person who had informed us about the group had lost the connection to them. At 4.10am, we sent an e-mail to the Greek police and to the Greek coastguard in Piraeus, alerting them to the group and forwarding their GPS position and phone number. After further unsuccessful attempts to call the travellers directly, at 4.20am we received two videos from the contact person, which showed that the travellers were fine, but not able to climb the steep rocks along the coast. At 7.20am, we sent a WhatsApp message to the travellers, asking if they had already been picked up. We did not receive an answer, and also one hour later we were not able to reach them. Thus, at 10.20am, we called the port authorities on Kastellorizo again and learned that they had picked up the group. At 2pm, our contact person informed us that he was able to talk to the group directly and confirmed as well, that they had been rescued.

At 7.25pm, the Alarm Phone was called and alerted to a group of 40 people on a boat in distress east of Lesvos, in Turkish territorial waters (case 2). The boat’s engine had stopped and they were about to drown. We called the Turkish coastguard immediately afterwards and they promised to take care of the boat. Several other contact persons alerted us to this boat in distress as well. Some time afterwards one of them confirmed to us that the Turkish coastguard had rescued the people on board.

At 8.30pm, the Alarm Phone was informed about a boat in immediate distress east of the Greek island of Chios (case 3). We called the travellers on board immediately afterwards and were asked to inform the Turkish coastguard, because water was already entering the boat. At 8.40pm, another person called the Alarm Phone, whose brother was on this boat together with about 80 other travellers. We called the Turkish coastguard at 8.45pm and provided them with the GPS position of the boat in distress. They promised to take care of it. Afterwards, we called the travellers on board of the boat, tried to calm them down and assured to them that rescue was on its way. At 9.45pm we called the Turkish coastguard again, but at that time they were not yet able to confirm the rescue of the boat, because they had too many open cases. At 10.10pm, we tried to reach the travellers again, but were not successful. One hour later, at 11.15pm, we reached one of the travellers on board and were told that they had been rescued. They thanked us a lot for informing the Turkish coastguard. At 11.30pm we talked to the Turkish coastguard again and were also told, that the group had been rescued and that they were fine and back in Turkey.

At 11.37pm, a contact person alerted us to a boat in severe distress, which had left from Izmir/Turkey (case 4). His brother was on the boat and it was sinking. The contact person asked us to inform the Turkish coastguard as soon as possible. He had received a distress call and briefly talked to his brother, but unfortunately he was not able to provide us with his phone number or GPS coordinates. At 0.23am, we talked to the Greek coastguard and forwarded the limited information we had. They advised us to ask the travellers to call the international emergency hotline 112 by themselves, in order to obtain their coordinates. We forwarded this advise to the contact person. At 1am, we talked again to the contact person with the help of a Farsi translator. We learned again that he had once been in contact with his brother on the boat but that he had lost contact afterwards. At 1.30am we wrote an e-mail to the Afghan refugee organization in Turkey, asking if they have any information about a boat that had left Izmir at about 11pm. At 3am we again wrote a message to the contact person and asked for further information. Finally, at 6.15am, he replied, stating that his brother and the rest of the travellers had been rescued by the Turkish coastguard at about 2am CET.