Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 22 November 2019
Case name: 2019_11_22-CM213
Situation: Two boats (one with 70 people and the other with 57 people on board) rescued to Malta; one boat with 45 people on board intercepted by the so-called Libyan coastguard and pushed back to Libya
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Med

Summary of the Cases: On 22 November 2019, the Alarm Phone was alerted to 3 situations of distress in the central Mediterranean. The first alert came shortly after midnight from a group of 70 people in distress. They had been at sea since the previous night, water was entering the boat, and they were in urgent need of assistance. The second alert came at 6.30h CET from a boat carrying 45 people in international waters. The NGO rescue boat, Aita Mari, was in the vicinity and headed towards the boat in distress. Before reaching the area they were instructed to stand down by the so-called Libyan coastguards, who then intercepted the boat and returned it to Libya where the people had escaped from. Our third alert came at 19.45h CET from a wooden boat with 47 people on board. We alerted the Maltese coastguard which mounted a rescue operation. However, they did not advise us of their actions until 24 hours after our initial communication.

Case 1: Boat with 70 people rescued to Malta
On Thursday 22 November 2019, just after midnight we were contacted by a group of 70 people in distress. They had been at sea since the previous night and water was entering the boat. They were in need of urgent rescue. They gave us a GPS position confirming that they were in international waters and the Maltese SAR zone. Our shift team alerted the Maltese coastguard, providing them with the location and contact number for the boat. We also alerted two NGO boats which were in the vicinity: Aita Mari and Ocean Viking. Ocean Viking advised us that they were 1.45h hours away from the boat in distress and would move towards it at maximum speed. We then lost contact with the boat in distress for nearly 2 hours. At 03.19h CET we managed to reach one of the people on the boat by phone who said "thank you, thank you, thank you" and "I get the rescue now". At 03.52h CET we received verbal confirmation from the Maltese coastguard that they had rescued this boat.

Case 2: Boat with 45 people intercepted to Libya
At 06.30h CET we received a call from a boat of 45 people. The phone reception was very bad so we were not able to find out their location or where they had left from before we lost contact. We spoke to them again an hour later and learnt that they had left from Al Khoms in Libya. They were in a small rubber boat with 37 men, four women and four children - they were very worried because all the children were sick. Our shift team was able to give them clear instructions on how to obtain their GPS. On the next phone call we received their location. They were in international waters and requested urgent help as their boat was beginning to lose air. At 08.50h CET we sent an email to the so-called Libyan coastguard and NGO rescue boat Ocean Viking, providing full details and requesting urgent action. Five minutes later we received another GPS location from the boat which again we forwarded to the so-called Libyan Coastguard and Ocean Viking. We receive notification for Ocean Viking that they were too far away to be able to assist. Fearful for the people on the boat we emailed the Italian and Maltese coastguards, NGO rescue boats Open Arms and Aita Mari, plus NGO search plane Colibri.

Aita Mari contacted us to advise that they would move rapidly towards the boat in distress). They requested coordination and instructions from the so-called Libyan coastguard. We spoke to the people on the boat who were really concerned as water was entering the boat now. We told them that an NGO rescue boat was on its way but would take four hours and that if things got worse they should contact us immediately. We were not in contact with the boat again until 13.57h CET. They were starting to lose hope, so our shift team encouraged them to stay calm and asked for an updated position, which they were able to provide. Soon after we received a message from Colibri, which was on scene and had located the boat in distress. We then heard from Aita Mari that they had been instructed by a Libyan patrol boat to turn around, leave the area and abort their attempts to rescue the people in distress. We then lost contact with the boat. At 19.53h CET we received an email from the so-called Libyan coastguard stating that they had intercepted the boat. Once again people have been returned to the inhumane detention camps in Libya.

Case 3: Boat with 47 people rescued to Malta
Also on Thursday, 22 November 2019 at 19.45h CET, the Alarm Phone was alerted to a wooden boat in distress with 47 people on board who had left Libya the night before. We managed to speak to a woman on the boat at 20.07h CET to confirm their location. Our shift team was very concerned as they sounded very anxious and distressed. We contacted the Italian and Maltese coastguards plus NGO rescue boats in the area requesting urgent assistance. The NGO Open Arms responded that they would head to the boat distress estimating that they were three hours away. We then lost contact with the boat but at 01.35h CET we learnt from Twitter that a cargo boat, Ilse D, had rescued 45 people off the coast of Lampedusa. We spent the next eight hours trying to ascertain whether the boat we were attempting to assist had been rescued by the Ilse D or any other parties by repeatedly contacting the coastguards and the owners of the Ilse D. We eventually heard from the owners of the Ilse D on 23 November at 10.12h CET that the Ilse D had not been able to carry out a rescue and had contacted the Maltese coastguard to advise them of this. We continued to contact the Maltese coastguard by phone and by email but were not able to get a response until 19.25h CET, and then they were not willing to give us any information. Eventually at 20.29h CET, we received a short email stating that they were currently disembarking people and that these correlated with the boat we had been attempting to assist. More than 24 hours after we alerted the Maltese authorities about this distress case in their Search and Rescue zone and at least 12 hours after the rescue took place, the Maltese Armed Forces finally confirmed the rescue to us.