Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 4th of September 2018Case name: 2018_09_04-WM323
Situation: 2 boats in the Western Mediterranean, 2 intercepted, one unconfirmed
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea
Summary of the Case:
On Tuesday, 4th of September, we were alerted to 3 boats in the Western Mediterranean Sea. Two boats with 8 and 11 travellers from Cap Spartel were intercepted by the Moroccan Marine Royale. One boat with 55 people was most probably rescued to Spain, but we couldn’t definitely confirm its arrival.
Case 1: At 8:33am CEST we received a direct call on the Alarm Phone of 8 travellers that had left at 1am local time from Cap Spartel. Among them were two women. In the following hours we continuously tried to receive the GPS position from the boat, but we lost the connection at 10:40am. At 12:39am, we informed the Spanish rescue authority Salvamento Marítimo via email. We couldn’t find out what happened to the boat until the following day at 9:40am when we reached them and they informed us that they had been intercepted by the Moroccan Marine Royale and were directly deported to the south of Morocco in a bus, together with 110 others.
Case 2: At 8:35am CEST we were informed about a boat from Tangier, carrying 11 people, among them 3 women. We tried to receive a GPS position of the boat. Last contact was at 8:50am, after that we couldn’t reach the travellers anymore. At 12:25am we were informed that the boat had been intercepted by the Moroccan Marine Royale.
Case 3: At 5:16pm CEST we were alerted by a contact person to a boat that had left from Nador, carrying 55 people, among them 16 women and 3 children. The contact person had lost contact to the boat at 12am. We couldn’t establish a connection to the boat neither. We tried to confirm the rescue of the boat with the Spanish rescue authority Salvamento Marítimo, but we couldn’t definitely identify our boat among the rescued ones. As Helena Maleno, human rights activist in the area, published on Facebook the rescue to Spain of a boat with 16 women and 3 babies, most probably this is the boat we had been searching for.
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