Watch
The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 23th December 2020

Case name: 2020_12_23-WM540
Situation: Boat with 62 travellers shipwrecked in Spanish SAR zone, as Spain
shifts rescue responsibility to Morocco and both countries authorities delay rescue efforts. 18 people missing, two people dead,
survivors brought back to Laayoune.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean

Summary
On Wednesday the 23rd of December at 04.00 CET, the Alarm Phone was alerted by a relative to a boat in urgent distress off the coast of Laayoune. The 62 travellers, including 13 women and two children, had set off from Laayoune on the 22nd of December at around 06.00 CET. We were not able to reach the travellers but could imagine the dangerous situation on the rubber boat as weather reports showed that waves were around 1,5 meters in the area. We were told that the Spanish search and rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo had already been informed about the distress of the travellers, but that they refused to commence a search and rescue mission as they claimed that the travellers were in
Moroccan waters. However, the waters off the coast of West Sahara belong to the Spanish search and rescue zone due to previous Spanish colonisation of West Sahara. Thus, Spain remains the responsible authority for the area, as West Sahara does not dispose of an own coastguard, regardless of the fact that the travellers were closer to
Moroccan land.
Despite the boat being in the Spanish search and rescue zone, Moroccan authorities had
also been alerted earlier and we learned that they had commenced search and rescue efforts at 04.00 the same morning.
At 12.15 we called the Moroccan rescue authorities. They were aware of the case and told s that they had searched the area, but as they did not find any boat they stopped searching. In a call to Salvamento
Maritimo at 12.48 they informed us that they were searching the area with an aircraft. Online we were able to monitor the trajectory of the aircraft searching the area. In addition to our calls, we
forwarded the information we had via email to the relevant authorities. In the meantime, we continuously attempted to reach the travellers to gather more information about their whereabouts and situation on board, but for many hours their phones were not reachable. At 18.27 we called Salvamento Maritimo again, asking about news regarding the boat. They were clearly busy and told us that they had not yet found the travellers. At 18.55 we called the Moroccan authorities who also had no news.


At 21.40 we received a call from one of the travellers. However, the connection was not stable enough to obtain any information. We tried many times to reestablish the connection, and at 22.25 we managed to
receive a message from the travellers. They urged us to push for rescue and told us that they had called the Moroccan authorities an
hour previous but that still no one had arrived. We tried to get a GPS position of the boat, and at 23.41 we received this. Because of the lack of phone coverage, travellers on this route usually are not
able to let people on land know their exact position. The position we received showed that the travellers were in the Spanish search and rescue zone, 14nm off the coast of Laayoune. We therefore immediately
called Salvamento Maritimo and forwarded the position. However, Salvamento Maritimo still insisted that the travellers were in
Moroccan waters and that we therefore needed to alert the Moroccan authorities. At 00.23 we attempted to call several numbers of the
Moroccan maritime rescue coordination centre but were not able to reach them. We forwarded our information to them via email and called again, but still did not receive any response. Later in the night a relative informed us that the travellers had been brought back to Laayoune where they were all safe. However, we later learned that not
all travellers had returned safely.
The following day we learned from people on the ground that there had been a shipwreck of a boat with 62 people. 44 survivors and one corps had been brought back to Laayoune, whilst 18 people remained missing. Among the
missing people was one of the children.
From people encountering the travellers in the hospital we learned that one of the travellers, a young Guinean, died after 24 hours in hospital. Several of the survivors were brought straight to a detention centre,
and according to people on the ground they were not given adequate care or any food. The travellers are now being held in detention, and there are rumours that they will be deported. As there is no asylum
system in place, Laayoune cannot be considered a safe port for EUropean authorities to organise disembarkation of travellers when it has not been established whether there are people in need of
international protection amongst them.
Following these awful news we tweeted about the situation, scandalising the shifting of
responsibility by Spanish authorities as well as the delay in rescue efforts by both Spanish and Moroccan authorities, which we fear had lead to the death of the 18 missing travellers.
See:
https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1342162809665314816

Our thoughts and solidarity are with the friends and families of the missing and dead people, and with the survivors who had to
endure this traumatising experience. We are sad and angered that we once again are forced to witness how Fortress Europe kills people on the move when the deaths at sea could be stopped immediately by ensuring access to safe and legal passage for everyone. Therefore, we once again demand the right to freedom of movement for everyone and that we replace Frontex with ferries.