Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 23rd of January 2020

Case name: 2020_01_23-AEG651
Situation: 26 people stuck between the arms of Evros river, picked up by Greek Coastguard; 29 people arrived on Samos island
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases:
On 23 January our shift team was alerted to two different cases in the Aegean region:
The first call came in from a relative who alerted us to a group of 26 travelers who had reached Greece by boat but were now stranded on a beach at the delta of the Evros river. They were stuck in the middle between two arms of the river. Our team alerted the Greek Coastguard at 3:00am CET. At 6:26am the Greek Coastguard finally confirmed they had found the 26 travelers and rescued them. We are still trying to reestablish contact to the travelers to see if they are fine as there is a high risk of illegal push-back in this area.
In a second distress case we were again alerted by a relative about a boat with about 35 travelers that was going towards Samos island. We couldn’t establish a direct contact to the boat. Nevertheless, our team informed the Greek Coastguard at 6:14am CET. Finally, we received the information from the Coast Guard and the relatives, that a boat carrying 29 travelers had arrived safely on Samos.

Case 1:
On 23 January at 02:20am CET the Alarm Phone was contacted by the relative of a person in a group of 26 travelers who had left from Turkey by boat and were in trouble. He sent us a GPS location in the delta of the Evros river, very close to the Greek mainland and close to the Turkish border. It seemed they were stuck between the two arms of the river. We tried to get through to the travelers but without success. We talked to the relative again, he told us, the people were in a very dangerous situation with water entering the boat and the were afraid of drowning. After several attempts to reach the people, we informed the Greek Coastguard at 03:00am via phone call and e-mail. We told them about the situation and passed the GPS location. They told us we should tell the people to call the emergency number 112 by themselves to verify they were still in need of help. We informed the relative about this, so they could pass the information on to the travelers if they were in contact. At 06.26am we talked to the Greek Coastguard again and they confirmed to have found the group on the shore of the river. We informed the relative about this and asked them to update us if there were news from the travelers, because in this region the risk of an illegal push-back to Turkey is high.
At 03:46pm we talked to the relative again and learned that, from what they knew, the travelers had not been rescued by the Greek Coastguard but by a fisherman. It remains unclear what happened. Possibly the people were rescued by a fisherman and later picked up from the shore by the Greek Coastguard.

Case 2:
At 05:55am CET our shift team was contacted by another relative of a second group in distress. Reportedly there were 35 travelers at a location north of Samos island in Greek waters. The relative had lost contact to the group 30 minutes before. We tried to establish a connection to the travelers, but without success. At 06:14am we informed the Greek Coastguard via phone call and e-mail. We repeatedly tried to reach the travelers. At 7:53am we asked the Coastguard for new information, but they were still searching. At 08:31am they called us back to inform us that a group of 29 people had reached Samos. We agreed to investigate for names and phone numbers of people from the boat to make sure it was the same group. At 08.48am the relative told us a name of a person from the group, which we passed to the Greek Coastguard. At 09.47am they confirmed that the person with this name was amongst the group that had arrived. At 01:35pm the relative also confirmed their rescue. As we could never talk to the people themselves, it remains unclear how many they were when they started their journey.