Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 18th of June 2020

Case name: 2020_06_18-CM254
Situation: 46 people embarked in Zawiah, rescued by Seawatch
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean
Summary of the Case:

Just before 19:00 CEST we were contacted by a group of travellers in the Maltese SAR zone. They were in serious distress and exhausted. Water was entering the boat. This is unsurprising as they had left Zawiah in Libya at 04:00 that morning. We tried to contact the Maltese coastguard, but they were not answering the phone. We sent an email to the coastguard, copying in the Italian authorities and Seawatch who were active in the area.

Still unable to raise the alert by phone with the apparent competent authority, Malta, we tweeted the following:

Boat in distress in #Malta SAR zone! A wooden boat in distress with 49 people fleeing #Libya, including 2 pregnant women & a child, just reached out to #AlarmPhone. They are 50nm from Lampedusa. The people are panicking as water is entering the boat. They need urgent rescue!

The only effect of our tweets seem to be that Malta was prepared to answer the phone. They seemed uninterested in launching rescue. Fortunately, Seawatch was active and engaged. They were able to locate the boat at around 22:30 and brought the 46 travellers, 45 men and 1 woman, on board.

In a world without racism, there is no need for Seawatch.