Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 10th of July 2020

Case name: 2020-07-10-CM262
Situation: 25 travelers (among them three women and five children) in distress in Maltese SAR zone, rescued to Malta after hours of delay and a lack of transparency from Maltese side.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case:
On 10th of July 2020, at 00:58h CEST, the Alarm Phone was called by a group of 25 persons. There were three woman and five children among them. They had started from Zuwara, Libya, approximately 24 hours ago on a rubber boat and when they called us, they were having problems with the engine and water had started to come into the boat. They transmitted their GPS location, which was in international waters and in the Maltese Search and Rescue zone.
At 01:21h, we sent an e-mail to the Maltese and Italian coastguards, passing them all the info we had on the case and asking for a rescue of the travelers. We included the search aircraft of Sea Watch into the e-mail correspondence. At 01:40h, we tried to inform the Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) via phone call, but on three different numbers they were not available. At 01:47h, we received a new GPS location from the travelers. At 01:50h, we called the Italian coastguard in Rome. They confirmed to have received our e-mail but stated that they could not inform Maltese authorities and could not give us any information. At 06:15h, we tried again to get through to AFM, still without success. At 06:21h, we called the people on the boat again, but could not communicate due to a bad connection. At 06:47h, we tried it again and found the situation on board agitated. Water had entered and they were exhausted, but they confirmed that nobody had fallen overboard yet. They transmitted us an updated GPS location. At 06:49h, we sent an updated e-mail to Maltese and Italian coastguards, the UNHCR in both countries and Sea Watch’s search aircraft Moonbird, stressing the need to rescue the travelers. At 07:09h, our shift team and media team decided to make public the non-assistance of the authorities on social media. At 07:18h, we received an updated GPS location of the travelers. At 07:49h, we could finally get through to the Maltese coastguard and passed them all information we had at that moment. At 08:00h, we informed the people in distress that we had alerted AFM. We received their updated GPS location and sent it via e-mail to all actors involved. At 09:20h, we talked to the travelers again, they were drifting, and we advised them to carefully shovel the water out of the boat without moving too much. At 10:59h, we received a new GPS location from them and learned that their engine had completely stopped. They reported to have seen an airplane flying above them several times. We sent an e-mail to the coastguards, UNHCR and the aircraft at 11:15h, with the updated GPS location and the info about the aircraft. At 11:36h, the travelers told us to see a ship in the vicinity, which we could not identify. At 11:37h, we sent out a second tweet about the situation, urging the authorities to take on their responsibility to rescue the people. At 12:02h, we talked to the travelers again, received their GPS location and learned that they had spotted another ship north of them. At 12:29h, the Moonbird informed Maltese and Italian Search and Rescue organizations and us via e-mail that they had spotted the travelers boat, confirming that they needed assistance. At 13:08h, we talked to the travelers, and they confirmed to have seen an aircraft and to see ships around them. From then on, we could not re-establish the contact to the travelers. At 13:34h, we called AFM, asking for news, but did not get any. At 16:28h, our media team sent out another tweet, asking for transparency regarding the rescue operation. At 17:24h, we called AFM again, and were asked to send our request via e-mail, what we did at 17:55h, asking for the status of the rescue operation and where the rescued would be brought to. At 18:52h, not having received a response, we called AFM again and the officer confirmed they would answer to our e-mail. Meanwhile different worried relatives and friends of the travelers had contacted us, asking for the whereabouts of the boat. We had to tell them that we did not have news. At 23:35h, we still had not received an answer from AFM, and tried to call them again, but they did not answer our phone calls, the same was the case one hour later. The next morning, we could still not get through to the travelers, but at 08:30h we reached AFM and they confirmed the rescue of 25 people, all had safely been brought to Malta.

Twitter chronology:

07:09h: https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1281455450442039299
11:37h: https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1281523015008821248
16:28h: https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1281596266418524161
11:46h (11.07.): https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1281596266418524161