Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigation – 16th of April 2015

Case name: 2015_04_16-CM14
Situation: Approximately 80 people in distress off the coast of Libya
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea, near the coast of Libya

Summary of the Case: In the morning of Thursday the 16th of April, the Alarm Phone shift team was contacted by Father Mussie Zerai, informing us about a situation of distress off the coast of Libya. Following his account, a plastic dinghy was carrying about 80 people, including 28 women and also children. Father Zerai passed on the Thuraya satellite phone number and told us that it was an urgent case as the dinghy was losing air. The shift team was able to contact the people on the dinghy who forwarded their GPS position. We passed on this information to the MRCC Rome in a phone call and were told that the cargo vessel Zeran, in vicinity of the dinghy, would be called and advised to conduct a rescue operation.

In another phone conversation with the people on the dinghy, the shift team obtained corrected coordinates and was told that their dinghy was deflating more and more rapidly and that their satellite phone was running out of battery. We wrote to the MRCC Rome again, informing them about the situation and the correct GPS data. When we obtained new positions from the passengers in distress in the early afternoon we, once again, passed on the information to the MRCC.

This was the last point of contact. The shift team charged the passengers’ phone with credit but, nonetheless, the passengers of the dinghy could not be reached anymore. Following the trajectory of the cargo vessel Zeran that was supposedly advised to conduct a rescue operation, the shift team noticed that it changed course and may have been involved in a rescue operation. However, the position of the Zeran did not match the presumed position of the dinghy.

When seeking an update from MRCC Rome in the evening, the shift team was told that their operational phone line would not be a ‘hotline’ and that they would not inform us about the different ongoing rescue operations. When speaking to the Maltese coastguards, we were told that they could only confirm the dinghy’s location in the Libyan SAR zone and would not comment on any possible rescue operations.

Finally, in the late evening, the shift team received good news: we found out that the dinghy in question had been rescued by an Italian patrol boat.