Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 28th of March 2019
Case name: 2019_03_28-AEG500
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 38 people in urgent distress. Two young men went missing, but are reported to be alive.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Thursday 28th of March at 1.37am CET our shift team was alerted by a contact person to a group of 38 travellers in distress, including several women and children, the youngest only three months old. The contact person stressed the urgency of the situation, as the boat had crashed into a rock, and the people had fallen into the water. We were not able to reach the travellers, but at 1.47am we alerted the Greek coast guard to the situation, and at 2.30am we informed the Chios Port Authority as well. At 2.54am the Greek coast guard informed us that they had carried out the search and rescue, and that the travellers were safe. However, when they arrived to the port of Chios, some of the travellers reported that two young men from the group, a 25-year old Palestinian and a 21-year old from Yemen, had gone missing. Following this information the operation continued, looking for the two missing people at sea, at land and with an aircraft. On the 2nd of April, after the Alarm Phone had made the case public, we received the information that the two people were still alive, but hiding from the authorities in order to avoid having their finger prints taken. This shows the extend to which the EUropean anti-migration politics forces people to risk their health, even after such traumatic events, out of fear for future deportations.