Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 14th of April 2019

Case name: 2019_04_14-AEG509
Situation: 14 travelers picked up by Turkish Coast Guard, 1 boat rescued to Farmakonisi
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases:

On Sunday, 14th of April our shift team was alerted to two boats in distress. One group of 14 travelers was brought back to Turkey by the Turkish Coast Guard. The second group was brought to a military base on the island of Farmakonisi and the transferred from there most likely to Kos.

Case 1 : At 03:31am CEST, we were alerted to a boat in distress between the Turkish mainland and Agathonisi, carrying 14 travelers, among them 8 women (2 of them pregnant) and 1 toddler of three months. The location we received by a contact person was in Turkish waters, close to the Greek sea border and by calling the travelers we could not find out more about their situation and if they were in need of rescue. After the first phone call we could not re-establish a connection to them and at 04:01am we learned from the contact person that they had been picked up by the Turkish Coast Guard. We continued to try and reach the travelers and at 04:25am we received a direct confirmation by one of them saying that they had been brought back to Turkey.

At 06:18am CEST we were alerted to a boat carrying 20 people (among them 10 children) according to the travellers with problems due to high waves. Their location was in Greek waters north of Farmakonisi. We could not reach the travelers directly and at 06:25am we called JRCC Piraeus and passed on the information. At 06:33am we received a new location by our contact person and passed it on to the Greek Coast Guard. We learned from them that a group of travelers had already arrived on the island and they asked us to check if the people were the same who had alerted us. We had doubts since the location we received from the boat had only been sent some minutes before and was located in the sea and not on land. At 06:40am we reached the travelers by phone call and they were still urgently asking for help but we could not find out more about their situation because the connection broke off. At 06:45am we sent an e-mail to JRCC Piraeus to inform them about the current situation and the latest location of the travelers.
At 06:58am the Greek Coast Guard called us back to inform us that a patrol boat was searching in the area and could not find the travelers and that they could not reach them by phone either.
At 07:50am we reached the people via phone and learned that they had been brought to a military base on Farmakonisi and everybody was fine. We informed the Greek Coast Guard about this. Aegean Boat report confirmed later the arrival and the transfer of 52 people on Farmakonisi and their probably transfer to Kos.