Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 8th of September 2020
Case name: 2020_09_08-CM293
Situation About 100 people probably pulled back by the so called Libyan Coastguard; 9 people rescued to Italy
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean
Summary of the Case:

Case 1
At around 21:30 CEST on 8 September, we were contacted by a group of travellers in distress. There were around about 100 people on an overcrowded small boat. There were at least seven women and five children on board. They gave us a position, which suggested that they were still in the Search and Rescue zone of the so-called Libyan coastguard. We forwarded the information to the alleged authorities, but received no acknowledgement. We were unable to make further contact with the travellers.

Early the next morning we found information on Twitter which strongly suggested that the travellers had been intercepted by the so-called Libyan Coastguard and pulled back to Libya. We say again: Libya is not a safe country. The European authorities have both the legal and the moral duty to act in cases like these.

case 2
Just before 17:00 on 8 September, we were contacted by a group of travellers in distress between Greece and Italy. The boat was in trouble because of bad weather and they needed rescue. We passed on the information to the Italian coastguard by email. We followed up with a phone call to check that they had received the information. We were able to keep in contact with the boat and received updated positions. We passed each position of to the Italian coastguard, but they would neither confirm nor deny that they were carrying out a rescue.
At 18:46 we decided to alert the world with the following tweet:
Distress in the Ionian Sea! ~25 people just reached out to the Alarm Phone. They are in panic as water is entering their boat and the weather is deteriorating. We alerted MRCC Rome, but did not receive confirmation that a rescue operation was launched. Don't let them drown!

We received a final position from the travellers at 18:58. As with all the others, we passed it on Italian authorities. After that, we were unable to re-establish contact with the travellers. We were able to observe an Italian search and rescue asset leave the port of Gallipoli heading towards the last known position. It returned to port, without having reached the last reported position. It was not clear they had found the travellers or if they had abandoned the search. We were unable to get any information from any search and rescue authority.

At around 14:30 the following day, we found information in the media suggesting that the boat might have been rescued to Italy. It seemed unlikely as the travellers had informed us that they were 25, but the reported rescue was of nine. In the very early hours in September, we received information from a relative suggesting that there had been a mixup. They said that there were, in fact, only nine people on board and that they had been rescued. We closed the case.
39°35'24.2"N 19°04'08.5"E