Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 2nd of May 2020
Case name: 2020_05_02 CM243
Situation: 90 people left from Zuwara, rescued by merchant vessle Marina
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean
Summary of the Case:
In the evening of May 2nd Alarmphone was alerted to a boat in distress off the coast of Lampedusa carrying 90 people. Authorities in Malta and Rome were informed at 22.26h via mail. However, it was impossible to establish contact to Maltese authorities via phone; an updated position was communicated to authorities via mail at 22.49h. When phone contact could be established with authorities in Rome they did not take responsibility for coordinating the people’s rescue. Until 01.16h on May 3rd several new positions were received and passed on to authorities in Rome and Malta. Throughout the night, the wind in the area continued strengthening; by 01.33h the people on the boat were out of fuel and started drifting in the sea. There was no food nor water left on the boat and people started to become more and more anxious. Until 02.40h Maltese authorities refused to take our calls intending to inform them of updated positions. At 04.00h people on the boat informed Alarmphone of two vessles they could see close by, and that people were starting to fall unconscious. Authorities in Rome were called to forward this updated information as well as a current GPS position. Still, Maltese authorities continued to refuse to answer our phone calls. The vessles seen by people on the boat appeared to be Marina, a general cargo vessle owned by Klingenberg Schiffahrts GmbH & Co. KG and the Maltese ship Pyxis Epsilon.
By 06.00h water had started entering the boat, people on the boat reported the situation was very critical. The two ships were still visible from the boat in distress. Alarmphone received a current position, which was forwarded to authorities. After this, contact to the boat was lost. Still, authorities in Malta refused to take our phone calls; both merchant vessles continued monitoring the situation without rescuing. By 08.00h a third merchant vessel, Karina, owned by the same Klingenberg Schifffahrt, appeared in the vicinity but appeared to not take any action. Contact was established with the shipping company Klingenberg Schifffahrt, pointing out that they were obliged to assist the boat in distress, following Chapter V, Regulation 10 A of the International Converntion for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), and returning the people in distress to Libya would spell a violation against Article 33 (1) of the Geneva Refugee Convention. At 09.38h, 11hours after they were first informed of the 90 people in distress, Maltese authorities finally confirmed they were coordinating the case. At 09.40h the newspaper Mediterraneao cronaca titled that the merchant vessles had ‘found’ the boat in distress. Eventually the shipping company Klingenberg Schifffahrt confirmed that the people had been recovered aboard the vessle Marina which was now awaiting instructions from Malta. The number of people was stated to be 78.
We remained unable to re-establish contact with the people in distress. By 11.30h Malta had still not instructed the vessle Marina where to take the exhausted people it had rescued, but changed course heading away from Malta. At 14.36h Alarmphone was able to establish phone contact with authorities in Malta, who said it was the Maltese government who was responsible for assigning a port of safety to the vessle Marina. While Maltese authorities continued delaying this decision, the shipping company informed Alarmphone that the vessle Marina was not carrying enough water to supply this many people even for a day, people were requiring immediate medical assistance which could not be provided by the vessle, and its crew was exhausted. By 17.30h still, no port of safety had been assigned by Malta. Authorities in Rome kept referring Alarmphone back to authorities ni Malta, who, by 08.00h on May 4th, still had not assigned a port of safety for the Marina vessle carrying 78 rescued people. The situation remained unchanged for another 8h. By 21.00h that night authorities in Malta kept insisting that assigning a port of safety was the responsibility of a higher instance. By 11.00h on May 5th the situation had not changed, and the 78 people remained in limbo off the coast of Lampedusa. Both Italy and Malta yet again displayed their inability to take their responsibility for the safety of lives at sea seriously, while European institutions remained silent. At 11.00h on May 6th, the shipping company informed Alarmphone that the Marina had received 300 bottles of water and some food from Italy – just enough for the rescued and crew to survive. At 19.00 SeaWatch tweeted about the case, stating that “The situation aboard the commercial vessel "Marina" is unbearable. The captain reports people sleeping in the open, the crew being exhausted and food to expire soon. Governments of #Italy and #Malta have to provide a port of safety – now!”. At 07.00h on May 7th the situation had not changed. On May 9th, the German news channel NDR reports that the vessle Marina had been authorised to land at Porto Empedocle on Sicily. The CEO of the shipping company spoke of an “international and humanitarian catastrophe” (NDR, May 9th 2020; https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/schleswig-holstein/Reederei-Gerettete-Menschen-verlassen-Containerschiff,marina146.html).