07/05: 29 travelers intercepted by Moroccan Navy

08.05.2019 / 21:29 / Western Mediterranean Sea

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 7th of May 2019

Case name: 2019_05_07-WM389
Situation: 29 travelers intercepted by the Moroccan Navy
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case:
On Thursday, 7th of May, at 12:24pm CEST, our shift team was alerted to a boat in distress with 29 travelers, among them 9 women (3 of them pregnant). According to the person who informed us, they had started from the Moroccan west coast at 2:30am local time. At 12:44pm we got through to the travelers via direct phone call and at 12:50pm we received their current GPS location. At 13:08pm we called the travelers again and they told us that a boat of the Moroccan Navy Marine Royale had reached them by now and that they were being intercepted. We agreed to call them back in one hour to monitor if everybody was safe but neither we nor the person who had alerted us in the first place could re-establish a connection from then on, most probably because the travelers were brought to a police station. On the 9th of May the Alarm Phone could follow up the case and found out that the people had been deported southwards towards Tiznit and one of the pregnant women was taken to the hospital.

Credibility:

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