Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 12th of December 2017

Case name: 2017_12_12-WM196
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to emergency situation in the Western Med
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Tuesday the 12th of December 2017, our Alarm Phone shift team was called directly from a boat, carrying 39 people in the Western Mediterranean Sea, including 3 women. At 5.33am, when we spoke to them, they appeared to be in serious distress, and communication was difficult due to a lot of commotion on the boat. We understood that the boat was taking in water and that they were near Melilla. In a phone call at 5.45am, they still were clearly anxious but also stated that they would not want to be returned to Morocco. Their engine had stopped working. When we spoke to the Spanish search and rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo in Almeria at 5.56am, we passed on all the information we had received and they stated that they seemed to be located in Moroccan waters and were thus the responsibility of the Moroccan authorities. However, they told us also to contact Salvamento Maritimo’s central office in Madrid. In the meantime, we had lost contact to the boat and were unable to re-establish a connection. At 6.30am, we spoke to the central coordination centre in Madrid and they confirmed that they had been informed about this case and were currently searching for the boat. At 6.58am, Salvamento Maritimo Almeria called us to inform us that the Spanish Guardia Civil had localised the boat and rescued 37 people, including 3 women, to Melilla. Despite the slightly different number of passengers on the boat, we believed this to be the boat in question. Later, we discovered a source that spoke about this boat which had already been half-sunken when rescue forces reached it. At 6.40pm, one of the persons who had been on the boat called us and confirmed their safe arrival.