Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 25th of January 2020

Case name: 2020_01_25-CM224
Situation: 72 travelers started from Libya and arrived in the Maltese SAR-Zone; rescued by Ocean Viking and brought to Malta. Around 40 travelers, started from Libya, rescued after 16 hours by the Maltese Coastguard, observed by Alan Kurdi.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Cases:
On 25th of January 2020 the Alarm Phone was called by two groups of travelers who had started their journey from Libya:
The first call came in at 12:35pm CET from 72 people, among them several women and children, in the Maltese Search and Rescue Zone. We informed the Maltese authorities and civil rescue organizations. At 07:35pm the rescue by the Ocean Viking was confirmed.
The second alert reached us at 02:53pm CET from around 40 travelers in the Maltese SAR-Zone. After we informed the Maltese and Italian authorities and civil rescue actors, it took 16 hours until the people were rescued by the Maltese Coastguard and brought to Malta, witnessed by the Alan Kurdi.

Case 1:
At 12:35pm CET the Alarm Phone was contacted by a group of travelers in distress. As the connection was bad, we could not clearly understand how many people there were on board, we thought we understood between 70 and 120, among them women and children. They started from Zawiya, Libya the night before around 10:00pm local time. They described their boat as made from wood and fiberglass with a small roof, still moving forward but running out of fuel. Water had started to enter the boat and there were not enough life vests. They sent us a GPS location situated in the Maltese Search and Rescue Zone. At 01:27pm we sent an e-mail to the Maltese authorities and the civil rescue organizations in the area, including all the information and the GPS location and phone number of the travelers. At 02:00pm we called the Rescue Coordination Center of Malta who confirmed they had received our e-mail and stated to send out a plane and a patrol boat to check the situation. At the same time, we received an e-mail from the civil rescue ship Ocean Viking informing us they had agreed with the Maltese Coastguard to head towards the boat in distress. We tried to re-establish the contact to the travelers to update them, but without success. At 03:37pm we called the Maltese Coastguard again and learned that their plane had arrived on scene and spotted the boat. They said they would send out a rescue vessel. At 04:18pm we managed to get through to the travelers again, but the connection was too bad to talk to each other. From the background noises it seemed they were still moving on. At 04:38pm we could talk to them and they passed us an updated GPS location and said there were around 80 people on board, among them 20 women and 10 children and their boat was white. They reported to have seen a plane taking pictures of them. They said that there was strong wind now, their situation had worsened, and they were afraid of drowning. At 04:45pm we talked to them again and they reported they were out of fuel and the situation was becoming increasingly tense. At 04:56pm we sent the updated GPS location and all new information to the authorities and the civil actors. At 06:22pm we received a new GPS location which we sent to the Coastguard and the civil actors at 06:40pm via e-mail. At 07:35pm we received the information from the Maltese Rescue Coordination Center and from the bridge of the Ocean Viking that the crew of the Ocean Viking had rescued 72 people who would be transferred to a Maltese ship and brought to Malta.

Case 2:
At 02:53pm CET our shift team was called by a group of around 40 travelers, among them women and children. They had started from Sabratha, Libya the night before around 11:00pm local time. They passed us a GPS location, situated in the Maltese Search and Rescue Zone. At 02:57pm we sent an e-mail with all the information and the phone number of the travelers to the Maltese Rescue Coordination Center, forwarding it also to the Italian authorities and the civil rescue organizations present in the area. At 03:06pm we spoke to the travelers again and they reported to see a helicopter. Their engine could be heard in the background, the seemed to be moving on. At 03:37pm they called us and were impatiently asking when a rescue would arrive. We told them that assistance was informed, and it would take some hours until it would get there. At 03:39pm we asked the Maltese authorities via phone call how the rescue operation was proceeding. They said they would send out a plane to investigate what kind of helicopter the travelers had seen. At 04:43pm we received a new GPS location from the travelers. At 04:06pm we called the Maltese Coastguard to pass them the updated position and they asked for the color of the boat. They had been sent a photo of a blue wooden boat by EUNAVFOR MED and supposed the helicopter had been one of theirs. They were trying to clarify if the photo of the boat was the same case that we had informed them about or another one. At 04:15pm we asked the travelers, their boat was wooden and blue, with white in the front. At 04:34pm we passed this information to the Maltese authorities. At 05:12pm we received a new GPS location from the traveler’s boat. We updated them about the state of the rescue mission and sent the new GPS location via e-mail to all the rescue actors. At 05:25pm we went public on Twitter about this case, to put pressure on the responsible authorities. Until 09:00pm we regularly received new GPS locations from the travelers which we passed to the authorities. At 07:00pm the travelers informed us that they were running out of fuel. At 09:30pm we learned that the situation had changed for the worse: the satellite phone was running out of battery and water was entering the boat. During the night we lost contact to the travelers. Only at 03:00am we could talk to them once again. They were still waiting but meanwhile there where persons panicking and screaming. They were afraid they would not survive. We called The Maltese Rescue Coordinators and reported about the dangerous situation. We also sent them an e-mail about it. At 07:35am we called the Maltese authorities again who refused to share information about the rescue operation. The travelers were still not reachable. Shortly afterwards we learned from the crew of the civil rescue ship Alan Kurdi that they had just observed Maltese forces carrying out the rescue, 16 hours after we first alerted them.