Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 10th of September 2015‬

Case name: 2015_09_10-AEG66
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 11 distress cases near several Greek islands
Status of WTM Investigations: Concluded
Place of Incidents: Aegean Sea

Summary of the cases: On Thursday the 10th of September 2015, the Alarm Phone was alerted to 11 emergency cases in the Aegean Sea, several through Facebook messages.

In the night, we were contacted about a vessel in distress, moving towards Chios Island/Greece. Contact to the travellers could not be established and so we informed both the Greek and Turkish coastguards. We later received the confirmation that they had been rescued to Chios.

Many of the cases we had that day, many during the night, were similar:

Three different groups were in distress near Chios in the early hours of the day and their rescue was later confirmed.

A group of 45 people was in distress at about 1am and we notified the Turkish coastguards who confirmed that they were searching for the boat. We later on heard that it could be presumed that they had been rescued.

Shortly afterwards, a group with 11 children amongst them was in distress and was then rescued by the Greek authorities after we had notified their coastguards.

At about 4.19am, near Lesvos/Greece, another group was in distress and their rescue was confirmed at 8.26am.

A few minutes later we were directed to a distress situation near Samos/Greece. We reached the travellers but all we could hear was ‘help’. We called the Greek coastguards and passed on their GPS position. The rescue of this group could not be confirmed.

At 4.41am we had a similar case near Lesvos Island where, again, we notified authorities but rescue could not be confirmed.

We also received a call from someone in Tunisia who alerted us to a group already on land in Greece who was disoriented and in need of assistance. However, the group and later on the contact person could not be reached anymore. We passed our limited information on to the UNHCR.

In the early evening, at approximately 6pm, a contact person in Cairo informed us about a group of up to 40 people, including children and women, who were in distress near Lesvos Island. We informed the Greek authorities and passed on their GPS position. At 9.28pm, the Greek coastguards said that they had rescued a vessel about 10-15min distance from the given GPS position. They could not fully verify the rescue and said that on the day they had about 20 vessels in distress near Lesvos. A few hours later we were able to speak to the man in Cairo again – he confirmed that the group was safe.