20/02: 36 travellers in distress in the Alboran sea, arrived back to Morocco on their own.

21.02.2019 / 17:40 / Western Mediterranean Sea

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 20th of February 2019
Case name: 2019_02_20-WM376
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to a group of travellers in distress on their way from Nador. In the end they managed to get back to Morocco on their own
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Wednesday the 20th of February at 1.33pm CET, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted by a contact person to a group of 36 people, including nine women and a girl. The travellers had left the previous night at 1am from around Nador, and the last contact to the boat had been at around 8am. We tried to call the travellers, but were not able to reach them. At 2.05pm we called the Spanish search and rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo (SM), and passed on the information we had. 20 minutes later they informed us that they were looking for the travellers, but hadn’t been able to localize them yet. Throughout the day we continued trying to reach the travellers, and stayed in contact with both the contact person and SM. Online we could follow the attempts from rescue vessels and a search and rescue aircraft to localize the boat. At 1.58am the contact person forwarded us a position of the travellers. We passed it on to SM, who informed us that they had handed over the operation to the Moroccan rescue authorities, and after this point they were not willing to give us any more information about the progress of the rescue operation. At 9.35am the contact person informed us that the travellers had arrived safely back to Morocco at around 5am, brought back to shore by the waves. SM confirmed this shortly after, and told us that a local fisherman had helped them reach the shore.
Credibility: UP DOWN 0
Layers »
  • Border police patrols
     
    While the exact location of patrols is of course constantly changing, this line indicates the approximate boundary routinely patrolled by border guards’ naval assets. In the open sea, it usually correspond to the outer extent of the contiguous zone, the area in which “State may exercise the control necessary to prevent infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws” (UNCLOS, art. 33). Data source: interviews with border police officials.
  • Coastal radars
     
    Approximate radar beam range covered by coastal radars operating in the frame of national marine traffic monitoring systems. The actual beam depends from several different parameters (including the type of object to be detected). Data source: Finmeccanica.
  • Exclusive Economic Zone
     
    Maritime area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea in which the coastal state exercises sovereign rights for the purposes of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, the seabed and its subsoil and the superjacent waters. Its breadth is 200 nautical miles from the straight baselines from which the territorial sea is measured (UNCLOS, Arts. 55, 56 and 57). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans
  • Frontex operations
     
    Frontex has, in the past few years, carried out several sea operations at the maritime borders of the EU. The blue shapes indicate the approximate extend of these operations. Data source: Migreurop Altas.
  • Mobile phone coverage
     
    Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network coverage. Data source: Collins Mobile Coverage.
  • Oil and gas platforms
     
    Oil and gas platforms in the Mediterranean. Data source:
  • Search and Rescue Zone
     
    An area of defined dimensions within which a given state is has the responsibility to co-ordinate Search and Rescue operations, i.e. the search for, and provision of aid to, persons, ships or other craft which are, or are feared to be, in distress or imminent danger. Data source: IMO availability of search and rescue (SAR) services - SAR.8/Circ.3, 17 June 2011.
  • Territorial Waters
     
    A belt of sea (usually extending up to 12 nautical miles) upon which the sovereignty of a coastal State extends (UNCLOS, Art. 2). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans

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