Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 19th of June 2019
Case name: 2019_06_01-AEG538
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to two boats in distress in the Aegean Sea
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On 19th of June our shift teams were alerted to two boats heading to the Greek islands of Chios (45 people) and Samos (50 people). Both of them arrived safely.

In the first minutes of Wednesday, the 19th of June, our shift team was alerted to a boat very close to the coast of Chios. We were told that around 35-45 people were onboard, among them 7 children. We couldn‘t establish contact to the travellers but called the Greek coast guard in Piraeus at 00:13am CEST. Only around 45 minutes later the coast guards confirmed that they found a group of around 35 people on land. At 1:35am CEST we managed to reach the travellers who confirmed us that they were safe.

At 4:43am CEST in the same night our shift team was alerted to another boat with about 50 travellers, heading towards the Greek island Samos. Their engine had stopped. At 4:45am CEST we reached the travellers but couldn‘t speak much due to language barriers. 4 minutes later, at 04:49am CEST we alerted the Greek coast guard in Piraeus and provided them all the information we had. At 5:05am CEST the travellers sent another location, they had managed to restart the engine and were now short before landing. We reported this to the Greek coast guard. At 5:45am CEST the travellers confirmed that they had landed safely and were with the police. At 5:47am CEST the Greek coast guard confirmed the same.