Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 27th of February 2016

Case name: 2016_02_27-AEG220
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 Saturday the 27th of February, our Alarm Phone shift teams were alerted to two cases of emergency in the Aegean region.

At 3.14am, a contact person informed us via Facebook about a group of about 18 people, 6 adults and 12 children who had landed on the island of Samos and were in need of support (case 1). At 3.35am we were able to contact them directly and a woman stated that all the children were wet and needed to be rescued. We reached out to the Samos Port Authority at 3.45am and they noted down the information we provided. They also said that the group should call the international emergency number 112 themselves. Then, for many hours, no direct contact to the group could be re-established. In the evening we received the confirmation that they had been found and were safe.

At 10.35pm we received a WhatsApp message from a contact person, alerting us to a boat in distress near Kastellorizo Island (case 2). Already shortly afterwards we learned that they had been able to reach the island independently. At 11.20pm we reached on of the travellers and he stated that they were 14 adults, including 9 children. They were unable to move on as they were stuck between rocks and cliffs. At 11.25pm we alerted the Port Police of Kastellorizo and passed on the GPS coordinates of the group and they confirmed that they would send out a rescue vessel to pick them up. At 00.30am, the Port Police confirmed that they would soon reach the group. We passed on the w2eu info-guide to the group via WhatsApp (http://www.w2eu.info/map.ar.html) and learned at 1.18am that the group had been found and rescued by the Port Police.