Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigation – 27th of May 2015

Case name: 2015_05_27-WM10
Situation: Distress calls from the Western Mediterranean Sea, interceptions by Moroccan Navy
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea, near Morocco

Summary of the Case: In the night from Tuesday the 26th to Wednesday the 27th of May 2015, the Alarm Phone shift team received a call informing them that a vessel was about to embark from Tanger/Morocco (henceforth referred to as vessel 1). A few hours later, another phone call from mainland Morocco reached the shift team, informing them about a small vessel that needed help. However, contact was lost and could not be re-established for several hours. At around 6am, the contact person called again, informing us that the vessel had been intercepted by the Moroccan navy and that the passengers had been arrested. He thanked the shift team for ours support.

Shortly afterwards, the shift team received another call from Moroccan waters. A woman informed us that she was on a small Zodiac vessel without engine and with 12 people on board, 8 men, 2 women and two babies (henceforth referred to as vessel 2). They had left the Moroccan coast around 4am in the morning and now water was leaking into the vessel. They asked for urgent help and information about their situation was passed on to the Spanish rescue agency Salvamento Maritimo.

In a phone conversation with Salvamento Maritimo in Tarifa, they confirmed that they knew of this vessel in question. There were, however, up to 7 vessels that had left Tanger together in the early hours of the day. Salvamento Maritimo stated that they had already sent out rescue vessels that were searching for them. The shift team informed the passengers of vessel 2 and advised them to stay calm and strong. It was clear that the situation had worsened, water was leaking into the vessel, the woman was crying and there was a lot of shouting in the background.

A few minutes later, the shift team received another call from Morocco but it turned out that they were alerting us to vessel 2. Shortly afterwards, another call came in from Morocco. Again it is someone on mainland M0rocco who had reached out to the Alarm Phone the night before, notifying us about a vessel that had left in the early morning. It turned out that he was also referring to vessel 2. He had talked to the passengers only moments early and had found out that they could see a blue and orange coloured vessel, presumably belonging to Salvamento Maritimo. About two hours later, the contact person informed the shift team that vessel 2 had been intercepted by the Moroccan Navy and that the passengers had been transferred already to Moroccan mainland.

The shift team informed Salvamento Maritimo about the interceptions and they stated that the Moroccan Navy had intercepted 4 vessels carrying 31 people in total who were brought back to Morocco.