Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 18th of August 2020

Case name: 2020-08-18-CM284
Situation: 100 travelers in Libyan SAR zone, bursting tube during phone call, all authorities refuse information, probably many dead in the shipwreck. 150 travelers (info unclear) close to Maltese SAR zone, lack of transparency by authorities, no confirmation of a rescue.
Status of WTM Investigation: Unconfirmed
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Cases:

Case 1:
On 18th of August 2020 at 10:14h CEST, the Alarm Phone received a call from a group of more than 100 travelers in the Libyan Search and Rescue (SAR) zone. They reported to be in severe distress, and during the call, our shift team could hear the sound of a bursting tube. After this we informed the Libyan, Maltese and Italian authorities via e-mail. At 10:49h, we talked to the so-called Libyan coastguard and passed them the information about the distress case. We agreed to call again in one hour. By then, we could not re-establish the contact to the travelers. At 11:04h, we called the Italian Coastguard and passed them the information by phone, but they insisted we should keep addressing the Libyan authorities. Only at 14:00h, we could talk to the Libyan authorities again. They stated that they could not launch a rescue operation, because they had only one vessel which could not go into operation due to technical problems. At 14:30h, we called the Italian authorities again, but they refused to get active in the case and insisted that we should refer to Libya. At 15:27h, we sent another e-mail to Italian, Libyan, Maltese, and Tunisian coastguards, presenting the situation of non-assistance and stressing the need to take over the coordination of the rescue. As we could not reach the Libyan authorities on the phone, we called the Italian coastguard again at 16:55h. They stated not to do anything in this case. At 17:16h, we called the Tunisian authorities, but they said they would not rescue a boat in Libyan waters and could not provide us reliable contact details to Libya. During the whole day, we had not been able to reach the travelers. At 23:15h, we noticed on an online ship tracking map, that the supply ship “Vos Aphrodite” had changed course towards the last know position of the boat in distress. At 23:55h, we sent an e-mail to its shipping company asking if they had been advised to assist the travelers. At 00:12h, we called the shipping company, but they refused any information and referred us to the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre. At 00:13h, the Alarm Phone was called by a relative asking if we had news about a boat with approximately 100 persons. He reported that his brother was on the boat and he had lost contact in the morning of the 18th. At 05:23h, we checked for the position of the “Vos Aphrodite”. They had gone to the last known location of the travelers, stayed there for a short while and returned to their original route. The next morning, we could still not get through to the travelers, nor to the so-called Libyan coastguard. At 11:45h, the brother of the traveler called again asking for news. He explained that they had left from Zuwara, and there had been women, men, and children on the boat. He passed us the name of his brother who was around 18 years old. During the day, we could not reach the Libyan authorities. Our shift team received many messages by the brother who was worrying for his loved one and who was also very upset, because we could not provide any information about authorities taking over the responsibility for a rescue operation. The next morning (20th of August), the travelers were still not reachable and the Italian coastguard did still not provide us information. At 12:15h, the brother informed us that he had learned via Facebook about a rubber boat that had capsized two days ago. Almost 50 people, among them children, had died. He had received the information that his brother had been on that boat. On social media, we found news about around 60 persons who had been rescued from a shipwreck in front of Zuwara and brought back to Libya the day before. It was unclear if these were the people who had called the Alarm Phone. We had to close the case without being able to clear up the whereabouts of the travelers.

Twitter chronology:

18.08.2020:
10:45h – https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1295643075071692800
14:24h – https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1295697957917011968
17:06h – https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1295738785964204034
19.08.2020:
12:35h – https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1296033023801143296

20.08.2020:
13:50h – https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1296414409582153731

Case 2:
On 18th of August 2020 at 13:09h CEST, the Alarm Phone was contacted by a group of travelers close to the Maltese Search and Rescue (SAR) zone. Communication was difficult, so we could not find out details about their situation. We thought to understand there were 150 persons, among them 20 women and several children, but it was unclear. At 13:32h, we could talk to them again and learned that they were moving but they were running out of water and food. When we established the contact a third time, at 13:52h, they asked for help. They reported that water was entering their boat, and that they could see another white boat. We tried to get an updated GPS location, but the connection was too bad. As we could not re-establish the contact, we called the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Rome and passed them the GPS data of the people in distress. They stated we should inform the Maltese authorities instead. As the Maltese coastguard was not reachable by phone, we sent the information we had to Maltese and Italian authorities at 15:41h. Several calls to the travelers broke, at 16:09h we could understand that the condition of some of the children on board was very bad. At 17:04h, we received coordinates via SMS and passed them to the authorities via e-mail. During the next hours, we could not reach the travelers, nor did we receive information about the rescue operations from any authority. At 20:16h, we tried again to call the Maltese coastguard on different numbers, but no one answered our calls. On one number, they picked up the phone but hung up as we started to talk. So, at 20:32h, we called the MRCC Rome again, but they refused to share information. During the night and the next day, we could not reach the travelers anymore. Neither did we receive any information about their whereabouts from Maltese or Italian authorities. So, we had to close the case, and it remains unclear what has happened to the travelers.

Overview on the situation in the CM, 18th and 19th of August on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1296058506919972864