Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 12th of April 2019

Case name: 2019_04_12-AEG507
Situation: 28 people landed at Agathonisi island
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case:

On Friday, 12th of April, at 1:26am CEST, the Alarm Phone was alerted to a boat on it's way to Agathonisi island, carrying 28 travellers (incl. 10 women and 8 children). The contact to the boat had been lost and the last position available had been from 30 minutes earlier, around 1am. The boat had then been very close to the borderline, but still in Turkish waters.
At 2:06am we called the Greek Coastguard who insisted to call the Turkish Coast Guard, We alerted the Turkish authorities at 2:35am, that stated that they had been already informed by the Greek Coast Guard. We sent emails to both Greek and Turkish authorities to document the alert. At 3:01am we called the Turkish authorities again, that couldn’t provide us with new information, simply stating rescue would be initiated. We still couldn’t establish a connection to the travellers, but at 4:30am a contact person sent us a GPS position of the group that was on land, on Agathonisi. We called the Greek Coast Guard and informed them about the position of the travellers, who had obviously landed by themselves on the island. We also informed the Turkish Coast Guard and wrote an email with the updated position to all authorities involved. Afterwards we tried to establish a connection to the port police of Agathonisi, but could not reach anyone in order to ask for assistance for the group. At 7:26am, a contact person confirmed that all travellers were safely at the port and waiting to be transferred to Kos.