Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 23rd of February 2019
Case name: 2019_02_23-AEG488
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to two groups of travellers in distress. Both groups arrived on their own to the north of Lesvos.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Saturday 23rd of February the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted by two groups of travellers in distress in the Aegean Sea. Despite bad weather, both boats managed to arrive safely on their own to the north of Lesvos, where a nine year old girl had lost her life just a few days earlier.

At 3.20am we were alerted to a group of around 50 people, including 20 children with the youngest of them being only two days old. The boat sent us their position, and at 4.02am we called the Greek coast guard and passed on the information we had. At 5.44am, after unsuccessfully having tried getting back in contact with the travellers, we called the Greek coast guard again, and they informed us that they were still searching for the boat but had not found anything so far. At 8am we spoke to the travellers again. Communication was difficult, but it sounded like they were no longer at sea. Only at 9.40am did we get a confirmation from the travellers that they landed safely on Lesvos.

At 5.19am another boat close to the first position we had received called us for help. We passed on the new information to the Greek coast guard. At 5.50am the travellers had arrived to the north of Lesvos, and this was afterwards confirmed by the travelers. They also told us that the authorities had arrived to where they were.
We learned afterwards that the two boats had carried together 112 people (65 children, 26 women, 21 men).