Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 24th of February 2016

Case name: 2016_02_24-AEG217
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 2 emergency situations in the Aegean Sea
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Wednesday the 24th of February 2016, our Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to two emergency situations in the Aegean Sea.

At 3.35am, we received a WhatsApp message from a contact person who informed us about a group of 50 people who were on a boat in distress off Lesvos Island (case 1). We were told that they had run out of fuel. We contacted the travellers at 3.45am and they were clearly in distress. We told them that we would alert the Greek coastguards which we did at 3.50am. The coastguards confirmed that they would go and rescue the people. At 4.01am, we spoke to the travellers again and they confirmed that a rescue mission was ongoing, with women and children first being transferred onto the coastguard vessel. At the same time, our contact person also confirmed that they were safe.

At 7.09am, activist colleagues of ours informed us about a large group that had stranded on the small Greek island of Kastellorizo (case 2). There were about 100 people, including 30 women and 25 children. We discuss the situation with our colleagues and agree to forward a map to the group, showing the way to the local police station. Soon afterwards we were informed that the group had reached the police station. One of our Arabic-speaking Alarm Phone members then got in touch with members of the group: they were safe and everything was fine. At about 1.20pm, our colleagues informed us that most people had been transferred off Kastellorizo and were brought to Rhodes from where they would travel on to Athens.