Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 20th of August 2016

Case name: 2016_08_20-AEG263
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 17 travellers stranded on Kastellorizo, rescued
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Saturday the 20th of August 2016 at 4.40am, a contact person alerted the Alarm Phone to a group of stranded travellers on the Greek island of Kastellorizo. He forwarded the group’s GPS position, WhatsApp number and mobile phone number to us. Beyond that, he informed us that within the group of 17 travellers, there were 5 children and 5 women, 2 of them with medical problems. At 4.47am, we reached the group via WhatsApp. They confirmed their GPS position to us and told us that one woman had problems with their kidneys and another woman was injured at her legs and unable to walk. We promised to organize help and to contact them again later on. At 4.55am, we called the port police of Kastellorizo, but did not reach them. Afterwards, we called the local police on the island. We forwarded the group’s position, but we were told that the police could not get active, because the coastal area where the travellers had stranded was too rocky. We were asked to call the port police again, which would be able to rescue the travellers with the help of a vessel. In case that we would not reach the port police, the officer asked us to urge the travellers to call the emergency hotline 112 by themselves. At 5.05am, we wrote a WhatsApp message to the travellers, asking them to call 112, but they were not online anymore. At 5.10am, we asked the person who had initially informed us about the group in distress to call them back and to forward this information. However, at this point in time, he had also lost contact to the group. At 5.13am, we tried to reach the travellers via phone again, but without success. Thus, at 5.18am, we called the Greek coastguard in Piraeus and forwarded all information we had obtained so far. They promised to take care of the case and to send someone to search for the group. At 5.20am, we talked again to the contact person. He was still not in touch with the group, but we asked him not to worry, because help was presumably on its way and the travellers were at land and not in an immediate situation of distress. At 5.29am, we sent an email to the Greek coastguard and the UNHCR in Greece and Turkey, forwarding all information in written form and alerting them to the stranded group. At 5.38am, we asked the travellers to give us an update on their situation via WhatsApp. At 5.47am, they wrote to us that they had been rescued. They thanked us and stated that they were safe and fine.