Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 1st July 2020
Case name: 2020_07_01-CM258
Situation: A boat carrying 30 travellers was probably rescued to Lampedusa.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: In the evening of Wednesday the 1st of July the Alarm Phone was alerted to a boat in distress carrying 30 travellers, including 3 women and 3 children. The travellers had departed from Zawiya, Libya, in the early morning and were on board of a blue wooden boat, they told us that they did not have life vests. The position they sent us was in Maltese Search and Rescue (SAR) zone however, due to bad connection we could not confirm it. At 21:51h our shift team alerted Italian and Maltese coastguard via email. At 21:55h we called the Italian coastguard who told us to contact Malta. At 22:02h we called the Maltese authorities, the officer who answered the phone told us that he could not access the mail but that he would forward the information. We then published a tweet informing about the case. At 00:33h the Alarm Phone was copied in an email sent by the airborne operations of the NGO Seabird informing that they had spotted a boat that was probably “our” case. By this point we had lost contact to the travellers, during the night we continuously tried to reach the them but with no success. The following morning our shift team called several times both Italian and Maltese authorities but neither provided us with information about the case. At 09:49h we sent a further email to authorities requesting confirmation that a SAR operation was underway. Both Italian and Maltese authorities confirmed by phone reception of the email but refused to provide us with further information. The refusal to send information was reiterated by both coastguards when we called again around 12:30h. At 12:45h a relative of one of the travellers informed us that the travellers had been rescued to Lampedusa and were ok. Although we did not receive confirmation from the travellers or the coastguards, we finally closed the case relying on the information received from the relative of the travellers who confirmed the rescue again in the evening .