Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 11th of September 2015‬

Case name: 2015_09_11-AEG67
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 3 distress cases near Greek islands
Status of WTM Investigations: Concluded
Place of Incidents: Aegean Sea

Summary of the cases: On Friday the 11th of September, the Alarm Phone was contacted at 6.26am by a person residing in Germany whose friends had arrived on a Greek island and were without food and water. They were 24 people, including 8 women and 4 children and had lost orientation. The contact person passed on their GPS position and a phone number. We located them on the small island of Glaros, close to Mikro. We spoke to one man of the group at 6.56am and told him that we would contact the UNHCR and ask for their assistance. They had called the international emergency number 112 several times but without success. We contacted the Port Authorities on Samos who noted down the details of the case. However, he stated that he would not reach out to the travellers themselves as he would not make international calls – a very absurd statement. At 7.49am, the group said that they were worried about their children and there was also a 4 months old baby amongst them. When the UNHCR opened up at 8am, we called them and informed them about the case. They said that they would contact the Greek authorities as well. In the meantime we received more and more worrying updates from the group – they clearly were in need of immediate assistance. We then also contacted the authorities on Patmos Island and they confirmed that they would also reach out to the authorities on Samos. We were then unable to reach the group for a while. At 10.22am, the Samos coastguards said that they had spotted the group and were in the process of rescuing them. At 11.18am, the group reached out to us again – they had been rescued but not by the coastguards but by a fishing vessel.

At 1.19pm, we received a case via Nawal Soufi’s activist network. They said that 50 people were on board of a vessel in distress and were unable to steer anymore. They stated that a vessel had approached them and taken their engine away. We were unable to contact the travellers directly at first who were south of Crete/Greece. We then informed the Greek coastguards about the situation. At 2.30pm, the coastguards confirmed that they would work on the case. At 3.23pm, we were finally able to reach the group of travellers. A woman said that they had been rescued. This was also confirmed by a WhatsApp message that they sent to us afterwards. We forwarded some relevant information on the situation in Greece for refugees and migrants and asked them to pass on further information on the attack that they experienced at sea.

At 9.15pm, we learned about a group in distress near Samos/Greece from a contact person who forwarded a map, indicating the location of the group. A few minutes later, a woman from the group of travellers contacted us directly. They were 15 people, including 2 children, who were already on an island. They were in the mountains and could see a village in the distance. Some of them had minor injuries. However, they did not want us to notify the police and said that they would walk on. At 9.49pm, the group sent us an update, telling us that everything was fine.