Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 22nd of July 2020
Case name: 2020_07_22-CM267
Situation: 83 people reached Lampedusa independently
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean
Summary
In the afternoon of July 22nd Alarmphone was alerted to a boat in distress in Maltese SAR, carrying 83 people, including 2 pregnant and 2 children. At the time of the alert the boat had run out of fuel and was drifting at sea. There was no food left on board and people stated their situation was extremely dire. One woman was very close to giving birth. After this call, contact to the boat was lost. Authorities were informed at 13.54CEST, but we received no clear information on whether Malta was taking responsibility for coordinating the rescue. Two hours later, Malta still would not confirm they were taking any action to rescue the people but were ‘investigating’. At 19.30CEST Sea-Watch International and Moonbird tweeted about a boat wich matched the description of the 83 people in distress, stating that the boat was now “a few nautical miles from the Italian search and rescue zone”. By 21.36CEST we still had not received any confirmation by authorities that a rescue was being coordinated. At midnight the situation had not changed. However, with regards to the observation of Moonbird and information that more than 30 boats had arrived in Lampedusa July 22nd, it appeared ikely that the people had managed to reach land.