Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 20th of January 2019
Case name: 2018_01_20CM148
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to boat with 100 travellers on their way from Libya. The travellers were brought back to Libya by a merchant vessel.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Sunday the 20th of January at 10.49am CET, the Alarm Phone shift team received a direct call from a boat in distress in the Central Mediterranean Sea. Communication was very difficult due to bad connection, but we learned that they were 100 travellers, including 12 children and 20 women, of which one was pregnant. The travellers had left from Al Khums, Libya, on a rubber boat at around 9pm Libyan time the previous evening and were several times able to send us their updated positions. The travellers were very distressed and informed us that the weather was bad, and they feared for their lives. At 12.58pm we alerted the Italian coast guard, who told us to forward the information to Malta as well, which we did immediately. At 1.58pm the travellers told us that they were no longer able to move forward. 20 minutes later the Italian coast guard informed us that they had handed over the operation to the Libyan coast guard, who would coordinate the search and rescue of the boat. Whilst being in contact with the travellers and respective authorities, we also published about the case on social media and cooperated with journalists, in order to raise public awareness about what was going on the the European external borders. We tried many times to contact the Libyan coast guard in order to obtain information about the progress of the search and rescue operation, but we were not able to get through to them. In the meantime, we kept forwarding the updated positions we received from the boat to the Italian and Maltese coast guard. From talking to the travellers we learned that the situation on the boat was gradually getting worse as water was entering the boat. At 7.45pm we spoke to the travellers for the last time, after this it was no longer possible to reach them. Online we followed the trajectory of a nearby merchant vessel, and at 10.46pm the Italian coast guard confirmed that this vessel had rescued the travellers and would bring them back to Libya. This information was, in fact, not correct as a different merchant vessel had rescued the group in question. The group was returned to Misrata in Libya, which constitutes a refoulement operation in violation of refugee conventions. According to MSF who treated the survivors and direct testimonies from the travellers, at least six people had died during the journey. After their return to Libya, a boy who had been part of this group, died.