Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 13th of June 2018
Case name: 2018_06_13-WM261
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to two boats in distress, 44 travellers remain missing
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Wednesday the 13th of June, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to two boats in distress in the strait of Gibraltar. The first boat was rescued by the Moroccan navy. From the second boat four survivors were rescued to Spain, whilst 44 travellers remain missing.

At 5.15am CEST, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted by a contact person to a group of 12 travellers in distress in the Strait of Gibraltar, forwarding us their phone number and position. The travellers had set off from a beach close to Tangier at around 1.00am local time. We tried to call them but did not get through to them. From 6.15am CEST the contact person also lost contact to the travellers, and during the whole day it was not possible to reach them. At 7.51am we called the Spanish search and rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo (SM) and passed on the information. They had many ongoing rescue operations and were already looking for the travellers. On vesselfinder we could see that a search and rescue vessel of SM was in the area where we received the last position from the travellers. When we spoke to SM again at 11.11am, they had still not rescued the boat, and did not have news about the case. We kept trying to get hold of the travellers, and at 11.45pm we finally received an answer from the travellers that they had been rescued by the Moroccan Marine Royale. This was immediately after confirmed by the contact person.

At 07.32pm CEST, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted by a contact person to 48 travellers, including two women and a baby in distress. The travellers had left from around Nador at 2am local time. The contact person had not been able to reach them since the morning, but forwarded us the phone number of the boat. At 07.49pm we called the Spanish search and rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo (SM) and passed on the informaion we had. They told us that they were searching with both aircrafts and boats for the travellers. At 8.10pm we called the Moroccan rescue authorities, who told us that they had also send a boat to look for the travellers. Later in the evening, at 09.50pm, we spoke to the Moroccan rescue authorities again, and they confirmed that they were still searching with boats. Throughout the night, and during the following day, we continously tried to find out whether the travellers had been rescued. We got the information that the Moroccan navy had rescued several boats in the area, but we were not able to confirm whether this specific boat was amongst them. Both the Spanish and Moroccan rescue authorities kept searching for the boat during the whole day. Around midnight we received the information via a contact person, which was later verified by SM, that SM had found four survivors on a boat which had started with 49 travellers. The survivors had been brought to the hospital in Almeria. SM confirmed that they were still looking for the remaining travellers.
We were not able to get in touch with the survivors, and so far we have not received any news about the remaining travellers.