Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 19th of August 2016

Case name: 2016_08_19-CM77
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 105 travellers in distress in Central Med, rescued by MSF’s rescue vessel DIGNITY I
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Friday, the 19th of August 2016 at 8.40am, Father Mussie Zerai informed the Alarm Phone about a boat in distress with 105 travellers on board, who had started from Libya. He forwarded a GPS position 30 kilometers northeast of Al-Khums/Libya to us and stated that he had already alerted the Italian and Maltese coastguard. At 9.35am, we observed that Médecins Sans Frontières’ rescue vessel DIGNITY I was positioned in vicinity, thus we wrote an email to them. 10 minutes later, Mussie Zerai informed us that the DIGNITY I was already on its way to the travellers in distress and also forwarded their Thuraya satellite phone number to us. We checked the credit of the phone, it was still charged with 13 units. At 10.15am, the crew of the DIGNITY I wrote to us that they had been alerted to the boat by the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Rome. We forwarded the Thuraya phone number to them, in order to enable them to contact the travellers directly. At 10.20am, we recharged their phone with 10 units. At 10.30am, we decided to leave the direct contact to the boat to the crew of the DIGNITY I. According to vesselfinder.com, the rescue vessel was about 60 kilometers away from the GPS position we had received 2 hours earlier. At 10.45am, we observed, that the Thuraya phone’s credit had remained constant. At 1pm, we asked the crew of DIGNITY I for an update, but did not receive an answer. At 2.30pm, the Thuraya’s credit went down to 3 units, thus we recharged it with further 10 units. At 3.15pm, we observed on marinetraffic.com that the DIGNITY I had stopped at a position about 40 kilometers away from the position we had been initially provided with by Mussie Zerai. Until 3.45pm, the credit of the travellers’ Thuraya phone remained stable. Finally, at 4pm, the crew of the DIGNITY I confirmed to us via WhatsApp that the rescue of the travellers in distress has successfully been accomplished. We immediately forwarded this good news to Father Mussie Zerai.