05/09: 2 boats from Nador/Morocco, one intercepted with 6 dead people, one rescued to Spain, 6 dead

06.09.2018 / 21:00 / Western Mediterranean Sea

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 5th of September 2018

Case name: 2018_09_05-WM324
Situation: 2 boats from Nador, one intercepted, 6 people died, one rescued to Spain, 6 dead
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case:

On Wednesday, 5th of September, the Alarm Phone was alerted to two boats that had left from Nador towards Spain. One boat was eventually rescued by Spain, already sinking, and 6 people died, one woman and 5 men. The other boat was intercepted by the Moroccan Marine Royale and 6 men died on the journey.

Case 1: At 12:44am CEST we were alerted to a boat in distress coming from Nador, Morocco, with 57 people on board (among them 18 women and 2 children). They had left from Nador at 1:10am CEST. The last contact to the boat was at 9am in the morning. We reached the boat at 1:07pm but couldn’t get further information due to connection problems. At 1:09am we called Salvamento Marítimo Almería, but couldn’t reach the authority. We then called the center in Madrid. They informed us that the search of the boat would be ongoing. On the livemap vesselfinder.com we observed two naval assets of Salvamento and an helicopter in the area. We couldn’t establish a connection to the boat anymore. The contact person passed us other numbers of the travellers on board, but none was reachable. At 5:47pm we called SM Madrid again, but they hadn’t found the boat yet. They confirmed that they would still continue to search. At 7:55pm the SAR operation was still ongoing. At 9:07pm SM Madrid informed us that they had found a boat with 57 people, among them five dead bodies and one person was missing. During the next day, we tried to confirm that this was the boat we had been searching for. Only another day later, our contact person confirmed that the boat had been rescued, but 5 men and one woman had died.


Case 2: At 9:49pm CEST we were alerted to a second boat that had left from Nador at 5am CEST, carrying 58 people. We didn’t manage to establish a direct connection to the travellers. At 11:26pm we called the Spanish rescue authority Salvamento Marítimo in Almería and Algeciras. We also sent an email to the respective authorities with all information on the boat to document the alert. During the next day, we tried to find out whether the boat had been rescued by Salvamento. Unfortunately our contact person informed us the following day that the boat had been intercepted by the Moroccan Marine Royale and 6 people had died.
Credibility: UP DOWN 0
Layers »
  • Border police patrols
     
    While the exact location of patrols is of course constantly changing, this line indicates the approximate boundary routinely patrolled by border guards’ naval assets. In the open sea, it usually correspond to the outer extent of the contiguous zone, the area in which “State may exercise the control necessary to prevent infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws” (UNCLOS, art. 33). Data source: interviews with border police officials.
  • Coastal radars
     
    Approximate radar beam range covered by coastal radars operating in the frame of national marine traffic monitoring systems. The actual beam depends from several different parameters (including the type of object to be detected). Data source: Finmeccanica.
  • Exclusive Economic Zone
     
    Maritime area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea in which the coastal state exercises sovereign rights for the purposes of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, the seabed and its subsoil and the superjacent waters. Its breadth is 200 nautical miles from the straight baselines from which the territorial sea is measured (UNCLOS, Arts. 55, 56 and 57). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans
  • Frontex operations
     
    Frontex has, in the past few years, carried out several sea operations at the maritime borders of the EU. The blue shapes indicate the approximate extend of these operations. Data source: Migreurop Altas.
  • Mobile phone coverage
     
    Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network coverage. Data source: Collins Mobile Coverage.
  • Oil and gas platforms
     
    Oil and gas platforms in the Mediterranean. Data source:
  • Search and Rescue Zone
     
    An area of defined dimensions within which a given state is has the responsibility to co-ordinate Search and Rescue operations, i.e. the search for, and provision of aid to, persons, ships or other craft which are, or are feared to be, in distress or imminent danger. Data source: IMO availability of search and rescue (SAR) services - SAR.8/Circ.3, 17 June 2011.
  • Territorial Waters
     
    A belt of sea (usually extending up to 12 nautical miles) upon which the sovereignty of a coastal State extends (UNCLOS, Art. 2). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans