Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 04th of October 2015

Case name: 2015_10_04-AEG89
Situation: Alarm Phone working on 5 distress cases in the Aegean Sea
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Sunday the 4th of October 2015, the Alarm Phone dealt with 5 distress cases in the Aegean region. The first emergency case reached us a few minutes after midnight when an activist collective informed us about a group of people who had stranded on Glaros Island/Greece (case 1). The collective had lost contact to them and unfortunately we could not reach them either. We then heard that a second vessel had also arrived on Glaros. We informed the Greek coastguards about the two cases at 2am and they confirmed that they had already sent out a rescue vessel to search for the people. In the meantime we were informed by someone else about a third group on the island. Later on we received the confirmation that the first group had been rescued and we assumed that the other two groups would also be transferred from the small island.

At 00:56am, the same activist group and another contact person informed us about a distress case near Samos Island involving 45 people (case 2). The group seemed in urgent distress with water entering their vessel. We contacted the Greek authorities at 1:09am who were very uncooperative and did not want to take down any details of the case. They merely told us to ask the travellers to call the international emergency hotline 112. One of our contact persons then told us that the travellers had been able to reignite the engine. At 2.40am we heard that the group had made it independently to Samos Island and were safe.

At 4.56am, another activist network called us to inform us about a vessel near Lesvos Island/Greece (case 3). We were told that their engine had broken down and that the vessel had started to capsize. The network had already alarmed the coastguard but was merely told to ask the travellers to call 112. We ourselves were not able to reach the people on the boat directly. At 5.20am we then reached out to the Greek coastguard who were again very uncooperative. We talked to them again at 5.42am and were connected to a different person who was willing to take down the details of the case. At 5.43am our contact persons told us that they had reached the boat. The passengers had told them that a vessel was approaching but that they could not make out what kind of vessel it was. Then contact to them was lost. At 6.50am the RSC Mytilene informed us that there were many vessels in that area and none of them was in urgent distress. So we hope that our vessel was amongst those that were subsequently rescued.

At 10.22am we received a direct distress call and while the connection broke down repeatedly we heard that there was a group of 45 people in urgent distress (case 4). The engine was not working anymore. We were able to obtain their GPS coordinates and could thus locate them between Behram/Turkey and Lesvos/Greece. They asked us to alert the Turkish coastguard which we did at 10.50am. The authorities took down the details and said that they would work on the case. In turn, we informed the travellers about the launch of the rescue operation. Then, for several hours, the group on the boat could not be reached again. At 2.18pm the Turkish coastguard informed us that they had rescued 49 people at the position that we had forwarded to them so we presume that this was the group in question.

At approximately 10pm, we learned from a Syrian activist collective that 40 people had stranded on Farmakonisi Island and needed assistance (case 5). The collective had already asked them to call 112 and when we reached out we could not get through to them. At 10.41pm we were then able to speak to one of the travellers. He said that there were 45 people, including 20 children, with one person injured. They were doing ok but had run out of food and water. We then informed the Leros Port Authority at 10.45pm who said that they would care of the situation even though they refused to take down the details of the group. We then informed the group on the island as well as the UNHCR. At 11.33pm the people told us that they would wait at the same spot for rescue and at 11.45pm the Leros Port Authority informed us that they would go and rescue the group the day after in the morning. At midnight we told the group that they would have to wait until the morning and that they should stay together.