Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 2nd July 2020
Case name: 2020_07_02-CM259
Situation: 100 travellers intercepted and brought back to Libya.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: In the evening of Thursday the 2nd of July the Alarm Phone was alerted to a boat in distress, which had departed from Sabratha, Libya, the previous night and was carrying approximately 100 travellers. We were alerted by a worried relative of one of the travellers who had lost contact with the boat in the afternoon. After unsuccessfully trying to reach the travellers ourselves, at 22:38h CEST our shift team alerted the authorities to the distress case, passing on all the information we had including phone number and the last GPS position received by the relative who alerted us. Soon after we saw information on the internet concerning disembarkation in Libya, we therefore though that this boat could have been intercepted back to Libya. As the tweet reporting this information included photographs, we sent them to the relative who had contacted us asking if he recognized the travellers. At 23:38 and 23:49 we tried to call the so-called Libyan coastguard, however they first did not pick up the phone and then hung up on us. The relative unfortunately told us that he could not recognize people from the photograph, however he would try to contact the travellers again. During the night we tried to call the travellers several times but we were never able to reach them. The next morning we managed to speak to the so-called Libyan coastguard who told us that they had few information on the boat that had reportedly been intercepted, we were told that it was carrying more than 80 people, that it had departed from Sabratha and that it had been rescued the previous day. We were told to call back the next day for further information as it was Friday so they were on holiday. At 11:29h we were informed by the relative that first contacted us that he had spoken to the travellers who told them they had been brought back to Tripoli.