Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 23rd of December 2018
Case name: 2018_12_23-WM359
Situation: WM 12 people (1 woman) rubber boat, still missing
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On the 23rd of December 2018, at 1.14am CET, the Alarm Phone received an alert of a boat with 11 men and 1 woman who left from Cap Spartel at Saturday the 22nd of December. The Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to this rubber boat in the early hours of Sunday the 23rd of December. The shift team informed the Spanish Search and Rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo (SM) at 4:50am CET about the situation and provided them with GPS coordinates of the boat. SM, however, rejected responsibility and shifted it to the Moroccan authorities but also the Moroccan Navy did not rescue the people.

The situation on board deteriorated and grew more dangerous but at least we were able to remain in contact and receive new GPS coordinates which we passed on to both the Spanish and Moroccan authorities so that they could launch a Search and Rescue (SAR) operation. We were able to receive the last GPS coordinates at 1pm but still then, no SAR operation was launched. At 2.35pm SM sent a helicopter to search for the vessel but they were not able to find it though searching throughout the afternoon. The shift team then lost communication to the boat. The 12 people are still somewhere at sea in urgent distress, with waves of more than 1 meter high and water entering their vessel as they told us before we lost touch. At 10.30pm, both the Moroccan authorities as well as MRCC Madrid informed us wrongly that the boat had reached Spanish ground. SM confirmed to us one hour later that this information was false. We asked MRCC Madrid once again to start a SAR operation instead of asking the Moroccan authorities to do so, but they did not want to take responsibility.

Around 4pm on Wednesday the 26th of December, we were informed that the boat had been rescued in the Strait of Gibraltar. We asked SM in Tarifa for a confirmation and they stated that they had rescued the 11 men and 1 woman and verified that the phone number we had from them matched their records. We thus confirmed their rescue to family of friends. Merely a few hours later, after obtaining further information, we called SM in Tarifa once more, and they then said that the only boat rescued with 12 people on board carried 2 women, not 1 as was the case in the boat we had been alerted to. So up until now, the people on this boat still remain missing at sea.