Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 10th of December 2018
Case name: 2018_12_10-WM355
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to three groups of travellers; on arriving in Spain, one returning to Morocco, and one returning to Algeria.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Monday the 10th of December, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to three boats in the Western Med. Two had left from around Nador, and one from Algeria. One boat was rescued by the Spanish search and rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo, one group of travellers returned back to Nador on their own, and the boat from Algeria returned to Algeria.

At 10.27am, our shift team was alerted to a boat with 34 people, including 7 women and a child, which had left from Nador at 10pm the previous night. The last contact to the boat had been at 11.25pm, and neither we nor the contact person were able to reach the travellers. At midday we forwarded all the information we had to SM, who told us that they had already commenced a search and rescue operation. In the afternoon we called SM again to get news about the operation, but they were unwilling to provide this. Only in the evening at 8.44pm did we receive the news from the contact person that the travellers had been rescued by SM and were being brought to Spain.

At 2.40pm a contact person informed us about a boat with 38 people, including 10 women, who had left from a beach close to Nador. The contact person forwarded us the number of the travellers, and a position showing that they were close to the Spanish colony Melilla. At 2.53pm we reached the travellers, who urged us to call for rescue. They told us that they had themselves informed the Moroccan authorities about their distress at 10am, but that no one had come to help them. At 3.18pm the travellers sent us an updated position, showing that they were drifting towards the coast. At 3.39pm we called the Moroccan rescue authorities, who were already aware of the case, and forwarded the position of the travellers. At 5.15pm we called back the Moroccan authorities, and they informed us that they had spoken to the travellers who had managed to arrive back in Morocco on their own. We were not able to reach the travellers afterwards, but at 8.54pm the contact person confirmed this information.

At 4pm, we were called by a contact person in Algeria, alerting us to a boat with 11 men, amongst them a disabled person and several minors, which had left from Algeria. At midday the contact person had received the news that they were close to the Spanish coast, but they had lost contact at 1pm. At 4.05pm we called SM and passed on the information we had, and in another call an hour and a half later, SM told us that they had not been able to find the boat so far.
At 5.29pm we spoke to the contact person again, who told us that the travellers called half an hour earlier, saying that they were close to the beach Las Negras. We immediately passed on this information to SM. Two hours later, the contact person told us that the travellers were in front of the port of Almeria, but unable to approach, as their engine was no longer working. We tried to get a position from the travellers, but this was not possible. In a call to SM at 9.35pm, they insisted that without a valid position, they could not search for the boat before the following morning.
The next morning at 6am we called the number on the boat again, and the person told us that they were all safe and on land. The contact person afterwards explained that they had arrived back to Algeria.