Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 28th of July 2020

Case name: 2020_07_28-WM473

Situation: 14 people rescued to Spain

Place of incident: Western Mediterranean

Summary of the case:

On 28 July at 7.40am CEST the Alarm Phone was called by the sister of someone on a boat carrying 14 people in total (2 women, 8 men, 1 child). She told us that the boat had left from Honaine in Algeria at around 4am on 25 July in the direction of Spain. The boat had since lost direction and moved towards Morocco. The sister had lost contact with her brother on the boat three hours before calling us at 4.45am that morning and had been unable to get through to him since. She informed us that the boat had encountered a fishing boat and those on board had called the coast guard (CG) and advised the travellers that they were close to Al Hoceima, Morocco. We repeatedly tried to call the numbers of those on board the boat on being alerted to the situation and over the subsequent days but were unable to establish contact.

At 8.22am we called Marine Royale (MR) to inform them of the travellers in distress. They advised us that they were already aware of this boat and had sent a search and rescue (SAR) ship but had not yet found the boat. We subsequently sent an email to MR reiterating the information we had, and also alerting Salvamento Marítimo (SM) of the boat in distress.

At 12.30pm that day we phoned MR for an update and were advised that their ship was still searching, and that SM were also searching for this boat with a plane. We continued calling for updates over the next couple of days and keeping the relatives updated. There was no news from the search until 9.35am on 30 July when we heard that a boat with 14 people (2 women, 11 men, 1 child) has been rescued. This seemed to fit the description of the boat we had been contacted about. We were contacted by further family members of passengers on this boat, and at 2.48am we were told by a relative that all of the travellers were alive and in hospital in Almería. This was then also confirmed to us by two more of the relatives who we had been in contact with. BOZA.