Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – July 26th 2020
Case name: 20200726-CM271
Situation: 45 people including four children rescued by Italian coast guard
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean

Summary

On July 26th Alarmphone was alerted to two cases. One of the boats in distress was rescued by the Italian coast guard; the fate of the second boat in distress, carrying 85 people, remains unclear.

Summary Case 1
In the early morning of July 26th Alarmphone was alerted to 45 people in distress, including four children. They conveyed their position to us, which we forwarded to authorities along with the distress call at 02.21 CEST. People reported to be wet, there were sick children on board, water had entered their boat. We continued updating authorities with GPS positions as conveyed to us by the people in distress throughout the night until midday. At 15.39 CEST the people on the boat informed us their engine had stopped working. Throughout the afternoon calls from the people in distress became more and more desparate; no help had arrived by midnight. Authorities both in Rome and Malta refuse to take responsibility for coordinating a rescue in this case. We lost contact to the people in distress during the night. In the morning if July 27th a relative of the people in distress informed us they had been rescued to Italy by the Italian coast guard.

Twitter Chronology

10.14 CEST https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1287299704938795008

14.42 CEST https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1287367617787961345

16.48 CEST https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1287399339887910912

17.01 CEST https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1287402771969462272

19.27 CEST https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1287439506816348161

July 27th

13.04 CEST https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1287705493084016642

Summary Case 2

In the evening of July 26th Alarmphone received several calls from relatives asking for a boat of estimated 85 people including four women and two children. Relatives of people on the boat reported the boat had been in distress when contact broke. We forwarded this information to authorities via e-mail at 22.05 CEST. We were unable to establish contact with the boat ourselves. Upon calling authorities in Lybia we were advised to call again in the morning – the officer could not confirm the interception of a boat matching the description of this case. In the morning of July 28th we called authorities in Rome, who confimed the reception of our e-mail but refused to provide us with any further information. We were unable to establish contact with the boat in distress throughout the day. Information provided by authorities in Lybia on intercepted boats did not fully match with the information provided to us by relatives of the people in distress. We received further calls of relatives asking about this case.

In the morning of July 29th a member of the Italian coast guard made a social media post about their instituation having attempted to instruct several nearby vessels, including the supply vessel Vos Aphrodite, to change course towards a small boat in distress. According to this post, the Italian coast guard received no response from vessels they had contacted and sent one of their own vessels towards the boat in distress. In the early morning of July 30th the embarcation of 84 people, including six women and two children to the Italian vessel was confirmed. Since we were never able to contact the people in distress directly, and relatives reported they had been unable to establish contact to their family members by August 7th, the fate of the 82 people in distress including eight women and two children remains sadly unclear.