02/08 3 known survivors from a shipwreck of 11 people near Almería

03.08.2020 / 22:05 / Western Mediterranean

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 2nd of August 2020

Case name: 2020_08_02-WM475

Situation: 11 people travelling from Algeria to Almería, 3 survivors, 1 dead, 7 missing

Place of incident: Western Mediterranean

Summary of the case:

At 3.40pm CEST on 2 August 2020 we received a call from the relative of someone on a boat that had left from Oran, Algeria at 9pm on 1 August. The boat was travelling towards Almería, Spain. He gave us his relative on that boat’s name and informed us that all the travellers on the boat were of Algerian nationality. Their phone had run out of battery and he had been unable to get in contact with them since the boat had departed. We attempted to call those on the boat on first being alerted to the distress and routinely over the following days but did not succeed in establishing any contact. We phoned Salvamento Marítimo at 4.18pm and passed them the information we had. They told us that many boats of 7 and 11 people had arrived (around 20) so they could not identify the one we were looking for, and redirected us to the Guardia Civil to try to find more specific information. The Guardia Civil also told us that they could not give us any information to help us identify whether the travellers we were looking for had reached safety or not. We continued trying to contact various authorities to try to find further information, but with no success.

At 12.11pm on 4 August the relative told us that he had been told that the boat with his brother had arrived and that the 11 travellers on the boat were in Almería hospital but had had no direct confirmation of this. We contacted the hospital and were informed that there was no one with his name there. The following day we tried and again were told the same.

We again tried to contact many different authorities to find news of this person, but continued to be told that there were too many arrivals for the authorities to be able to say if this particular person had arrived.

Later that afternoon we found the report of a shipwreck in the region with 11 people.

Several days later on 9 August we were contacted by the family of someone else who was supposed to be on the same boat as the person we were originally contacted about. The family told us that they had identified the body of their relative who was found drowned at sea.

On 11 August we got a further phone call from another relative looking for the first man we had been contacted about. He was still not on the list of arrivals to Spain and so is presumed one of those missing.

We later discovered that there were three survivors from this boat who were all taken to Almería hospital, one confirmed dead, and seven who remain missing, presumed dead.

Tweets:

2.45pm, 5 August - https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1291007399613075456?s=20
Last update: 19:34 Dec 20, 2020
Credibility: UP DOWN 0
Layers »
  • Border police patrols
     
    While the exact location of patrols is of course constantly changing, this line indicates the approximate boundary routinely patrolled by border guards’ naval assets. In the open sea, it usually correspond to the outer extent of the contiguous zone, the area in which “State may exercise the control necessary to prevent infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws” (UNCLOS, art. 33). Data source: interviews with border police officials.
  • Coastal radars
     
    Approximate radar beam range covered by coastal radars operating in the frame of national marine traffic monitoring systems. The actual beam depends from several different parameters (including the type of object to be detected). Data source: Finmeccanica.
  • Exclusive Economic Zone
     
    Maritime area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea in which the coastal state exercises sovereign rights for the purposes of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, the seabed and its subsoil and the superjacent waters. Its breadth is 200 nautical miles from the straight baselines from which the territorial sea is measured (UNCLOS, Arts. 55, 56 and 57). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans
  • Frontex operations
     
    Frontex has, in the past few years, carried out several sea operations at the maritime borders of the EU. The blue shapes indicate the approximate extend of these operations. Data source: Migreurop Altas.
  • Mobile phone coverage
     
    Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network coverage. Data source: Collins Mobile Coverage.
  • Oil and gas platforms
     
    Oil and gas platforms in the Mediterranean. Data source:
  • Search and Rescue Zone
     
    An area of defined dimensions within which a given state is has the responsibility to co-ordinate Search and Rescue operations, i.e. the search for, and provision of aid to, persons, ships or other craft which are, or are feared to be, in distress or imminent danger. Data source: IMO availability of search and rescue (SAR) services - SAR.8/Circ.3, 17 June 2011.
  • Territorial Waters
     
    A belt of sea (usually extending up to 12 nautical miles) upon which the sovereignty of a coastal State extends (UNCLOS, Art. 2). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans

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