Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 6th of September 2015‬

Case name: 2015_09_6-AEG62
Situation: 6 emergency cases near Chios, Lesvos, Samos, Symi‬‬
Status of WTM Investigations: Concluded
Place of Incidents: Aegean Sea

Summary of the case: On Sunday, the 6th of September 2015, the Alarm Phone was alerted to 6 cases in the Agean Sea, near the Greek islands of Chios, Lesvos, Samos, and Symi‬.‬‬

At 00.40am the Alarm Phone was notified via WhatsApp about the 1st distress case in the Aegean Sea. The message concerned a boat carrying 44 people who were in distress, as their vessel had been attacked and their engine taken away. We could locate the boat between Cesme, Turkey and Chios, Greece and immediately informed the Turkish coastguard about the case. In the following hours we maintained close contact to the Turkish authorities in order to pass on updated positions of the boat and to check on whether they had started a rescue operation. At 2:10am we received a message from a different contact person about two other boats in distress in the same area. They had also been attacked and left at sea without an engine. At 2:30am we called the Turkish coastguard again who confirmed that they had rescued one boat in the area. At 3.30am the first contact person called us because the first boat had still not been found. At 5:00am we contacted the Turkish coastguard in Izmir and gave them the new coordinates. At 6:45am the contact person confirmed that all travellers on several boats in the area had been rescued.

At 3am, while working on the first case, the Alarm Phone received a call from a contact person about a 2nd vessel in distress in Turkish waters, carrying a group of 50. We tried to call the Turkish coastguard in Ankara, Izmir and Canakkale, but no one picked up the phone. So we finally called the Greek coastguard, who told us that the travellers should call them directly. We replied that the situation was really urgent and that we could not reach the boat anymore, but the authorities just hung up the phone. We thus sent an e-mail to both the Greek and the Turkish coastguards. Around 7.30am we attempted to reach the boatpeople again, but without success. At 3pm they finally answered and told us that they had safely arrived in Greece!

At 4:15am the Alarm Phone was alerted to a 3rd distress case in the Aegean Sea: Our contact person told us that friends of his were on their way to Samos, but he did not have their exact GPS position. We couldn't reach the travellers ourselves, so at 4.45am we called back the contact person, telling him that we needed coordinates and that the travellers should call 112. At 5.34am we received another call concerning the same boat, but still no information about the position. At 6.06am the person contacted us again, telling us that some of the travellers were already in the water. At 6.30am we called the Greek coastguard, even though we could not indicate the position of the boat. We asked whether there was any ongoing rescue operation near Samos. The coastguard replied that they had carried out several rescue operations near Samos and that all people had been saved. We forwarded this information to the contact persons. The second contact person was still worried, as he had relatives on one of the boats. At 7.30am he contacted us again, because his brother had reached out to him to tell him that he had safely arrived in Greece.

At 4.38am we received another WhatsApp message about three boats in distress near Chios Island, Greece. We told the contact person to explain to the travellers that they would need to call 112 directly. At 5pm she called to say that two boats were rescued and, twenty minutes, she also confirmed the rescue of the third boat.

About one hour later we were informed about a 5th distress case involving one vessel between Cesme, Turkey and Chios, Greece. At 5.42am we informed the Greek coastguard of Mytilene about the case. The travellers could not be reached neither by phone nor by WhatsApp until 3.48pm, when they received our message. So we called them immediately and they told us that the Turkish coastguard had pulled them back.

At 10.26pm, the Alarm Phone was alerted to a 6th distress case in the Aegean Sea. A contact person sent us a WhatsApp message about a vessel carrying 30 persons with a broken engine. Some digits of the coordinates were missing, but we could nonetheless locate the boat in Greek waters, east of Skala Sikamenias, Lesvos, close to the cape of Korakas, Tsonia. We could not reach the travellers, but informed the Greek coastguard about the case. At twenty minutes past midnight, we called them again to ask for a confirmation of rescue. They told us that they were looking for the boat, but that they could not reach the boat and had not encountered a vessel in the area. We could not get any final confirmation of the safe arrival of the travellers. We hoped the best, as in many cases in this area the travellers manage to restart the engine and to finally reach the island by themselves.