Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 7th of December 2019
Case name: 2019_12_07-WM432
Situation: 9 travellers from Nador stranded on the west coast from Tibouda/Melilla, their fate remains unclear. A boat with 37 travellers was rescued to Las Palmas.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Saturday the 7th of December we were alerted to a group of travellers stranded on some rocks near Melilla, their fate remains unclear. In the same evening we were alerted to a boat in distress that was rescued to Tenerife, Canary Islands.

At 11h30 CET of Saturday the 7th of December the Alarm phone was alerted to 9 travellers in distress that had departed from Nador and were stranded on an island near Melilla. At 11h52 we managed to establish contact with the travellers, they told us that they were ten men including one 12 year-old boy. They were stuck on a rock since the early morning , they were cold and wet. We then were no longer able to speak to the travellers for several hours. After finally having received their GPS position, at 15:29 we informed both the Spanish and the Moroccan coastguard about the distress case. At 16:30 and at 18:30 approximately we called again the Moroccan coastguards who informed us that they were sending rescue from Nador. At 21h00 and 22h50 the Moroccan coastguard told us that the search was ongoing. Around 23h00 we were informed that the rescue was too difficult as it was night and there was not enough visibility, and that the Moroccan coastguard would go back the following morning. On Sunday the 8th of December, after failing multiple times to establish contact with the coastguard in Nador around 13h00 our shift team called the central coastguard office in Rabat who informed us that the Spanish coastguard had rescued a boat earlier in the morning and that the Moroccan coastguard was currently searching for a boat, however they did not have further information. At 13h30 we managed to speak to the coastguard in Nador who told us that they were trying to rescue the people. At around 16h we called again the coastguard who told us that they had not found the people while searching from the sea, so the police would search them from land. During this whole day we were unable to contact the travellers themselves. Feeling that the travellers could have been found earlier in the morning and detained, at 21h30 we called once again the coastguard who told us that the search was still underway and that no-one had been arrested or detained in that area. The following day, Monday the 9th of December, we still had no new information and we were still unable to speak to the travellers, their fate remains unknown.

At 20h20 of the same day we received a call, however, due to communication difficulties we could not understand each other. One hour later we managed to re-establish contact and we were informed about a boat in distress carrying 37 travellers, including 8 women and 4 children (one of which was a three-month old baby). The boat had left the previous night from Tarfaya, Morocco, and was heading towards Las Palmas. We tried to establish direct contact with the travellers multiple times but could not do so. At 22:09 we were informed that the boat was a black zodiac. At 22:25 we alerted the Las Palmas coastguard about the case, they informed us that earlier in the afternoon they had rescued to Fuerteventura a black zodiac with 37 travellers but with 10 women. They told us to call back in the morning for further information. At 00:48 the contact person confirmed that the travellers had been rescued, however we were unable to receive confirmation from the travellers themselves.