Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 26th of June 2016

Case name: 2016_06_24-CM66
Situation: Alarm Phone
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Sunday, the 26th of June 2016, the Alarm Phone was involved in two distress cases in the Central Mediterranean Sea. At 7.53am, we received an e-mail from Father Mussie Zerai concerning two boats on the way from Libya to Europe, carrying 120 people and 135 people respectively, who were in urgent need of assistance. In the first case, we could not establish a direct contact with the travellers, but we recharged their Thuraya satellite phone, contacted the Italian Coastguard, and tried to communicate and coordinate with the civil boats Dignity 1 of Doctors without borders and the Sea watch team. In the second case we were in direct contact with the travellers, who told us that they were actually 125 persons on board. Again, we called the Italian Coastguard, who was already informed about the case, but who hadn't been able to locate the boat. At 9.05am, when we reached out to the travellers on the second boat again to tell them that we had informed the Coastguard, they explained that a German boat had already rescued them. We could not obtain a final confirmation of the safe arrival of the travellers from the first boat. As both the Coastguard and the civil rescue missions underlined, it was difficult to identify which boat was rescued and by whom, because there were a lot of simultaneous rescue operations. Later on Sunday, the Italian Coastguard stated that they had coordinated the rescue of about 3,324 persons from 26 boats. Besides the Italian Coastguard and the Navy, civil rescue missions like Doctors without Borders and Sea Watch were again involved in the rescue operations.