Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 13th of December 2018
Case name: 2018_12_13-AEG468
Situation: Two groups of travellers in distress in the Aegean, one rescued to Turkey, the other arrived to Lesvos on their own
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Thursday the 13th of December the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to two boats in the Aegean sea. In both cases we were not able to reach the travellers, but we were in contact with both the Turkish and Greek coast guard and were in the end able to confirm that one boat had arrived to Lesvos on their own, whilst the others had been rescued by Turkish fishermen.
At 1.30am CET, a contact person informed us about a boat with 38 people, including 18 children, forwarding us an old position and the phone number on the boat. The contact person was not entirely sure whether the travellers had already been rescued and asked us to help confirm this. We were not able to reach the boat ourselves, and called both the Greek and Turkish coast guard, but neither of them could confirm the rescue of the boat. We stayed in contact with the coast guards, and they informed us that despite efforts from both the Greek and Turkish coast guard, they had not been able to find the boat. At 4.14pm the contact person told us that the people had arrived to the north of Lesvos on their own, and that they were now in the Moria camp.
At 5.50am we received information form a contact person about a boat in distress, forwarding us their phone number and a position from two hours earlier. We were not able to reach the travellers, but called the Greek and Turkish coast guard, who could, however, not confirm if this boat had been rescued. At 11am the Greek coast guard called us back, after they had searched the area of the last position without any success. At 1.14pm we reached the number of the travellers who told us that they had been rescued by Turkish fishermen and brought back to a Turkish port.