Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 12th of December 2018
Case name: 2018_12_12-WM356
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to two groups of travellers, the first group was rescued to Spain, whilst the second was returned to Morocco.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Wednesday the 12th of December the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted two boats in the Western Med, one carrying seven people, the other carrying 12 people. The first boat was rescued by the Spanish search and rescue organization Salvamento Maritimo (SM), whilst the second boat was intercepted by the Moroccan Navy and brought back to Morocco, where we were informed that the travellers were held imprisoned.

At 04.55am we were alerted to a boat carrying seven people, including an ill 14-year old boy. The travellers had left from around Tangier at 11pm the previous day. Via a contact person we received the position of the boat, and a 5.46am we alerted SM to the distress of the travellers. At 6.15am we managed to reach the boat, and afterwards they were continuously sending us their updated position. At 6.45am we called SM again, providing them an updated position of the boat, and pointing out that the travellers were now in the search and rescue zone shared by Morocco and Spain, meaning that SM had no reason to hand over the operation to Moroccan authorities. As we in several calls to SM could not obtain information about whether they had commenced a rescue operation, we chose to tweet about the case at 7.59am, demanding immediate action from SM, to prevent more deaths at sea. A little less than an hour later, we could see on vesselfinder that one of SM’s rescue vessels had left the port, heading the direction of the travellers, and within an hour we had a confirmation from SM that they had rescued the boat. At 10.13am the travellers called us again, confirming that they had been rescued and were on their way to Spain.

At 8.05am we received information from a contact person about 12 people, including two women, who had left Tangier at 2am, and shortly after we received the position of the boat and two phone numbers. We were not able to establish direct contact to the travellers, and the contact person also informed us that they had not been in contact with the travellers since 7am. At 10.01am we called SM and passed on the information we had. At 10.50am the contact person informed us that the travellers had been intercepted by the Moroccan Navy, and we later learned that they had been taken to a prison.