Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 25th of October 2015

Case name: 2015_10_25-AEG109
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 2 distress cases in the Aegean Sea
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Sunday the 25th of October 2015, the Alarm Phone was alerted to 2 emergency situations in the Aegean Sea.

At 11.50am we were alerted by a woman in France who said that she had learned about a distress case through Facebook (case 1). She told us about an emergency situation near Lesvos Island with several people in immediate danger. Shortly afterwards she was able to provide us with further details and a phone number of one of the travellers which, however, could not be reached. We sent an email with the information to the Greek coastguard which then called us at 12.45pm and told us to inform the Turkish coastguards. When we finally reached the Turkish coastguard at 1.17pm, they told us that they had received information about this case through the Greek coastguard. At 1.21pm, one of our Alarm Phone members on Lesvos informed us that a helicopter was sent out to search for them. They had already found three bodies of women and children. More than 10 people were still missing (see source 1). Afterwards, no further information could be gathered but we will try to find out more about this distress case and the fatalities it caused.

At 12.57pm, we were contacted by a group who were on an island in the Aegean region and needed assistance (case 2). They were first unable to send us their location but from their messages we gathered that they were on the small island of Nisides Tomakia, close to Lesvos Island. At 2.05pm, we informed the Greek coastguard on Lesvos about the situation and they said that they would send out a patrol boat. In the meantime we learned that they were about 40 people, including 9 children who were all wet after their vessel had crashed and they needed medical support. At 2.13pm the Greek coastguard confirmed that they were on their way to the island. At 3.40pm we learned that they were being transferred from the island. We then found out that they were not transferred by the coastguard but in fact by fishermen. They had been able to rescue the whole group from the island but in that process their vessel had hit against rocks and was damaged. Fortunately, everyone remained uninjured. Alarm Phone members went to the harbour to welcome the survivors and to provide them with dry clothes (see also newspaper report, source 2). We encountered the group, including also one little boy who had proudly ‘rescued’ a cat from the island. We were then able to transport the families with children to Pikpa, a self-organized Welcome center that offers shelter for the most vulnerable cases so that they can take a rest before going to Moria for registration. We also met with the fishermen and used our funds to hand them 400 Euro so that they could fix the damages to their vessel. They also said that this had not been their first rescue mission.