Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 10th of September 2020
Case name: 2020_09_10-CM295
Situation 64 men, 11 women, and 2 children, rescued by the Open Arms.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean
Summary of the Case:
On 10 September shortly after 20:00 CEST we were contacted by a group of around 75 travellers in distress. They had been at sea for 19 hours. Water was now entering the boat. We emailed MRCC Rome and MRCC Malta, copying in the so called Libyan coastguards and the civil fleet.

Unable to get a response from the authorities we put out the following tweet:
~75 lives at risk off #Libya!
A boat with approx. 75 people in distress just reached out to us. They fled Libya and are at sea for 20 hours already. They say that water is entering the boat and that some people are sick. They call for rescue and they need a place of safety! ~75 lives at risk off #Libya!

Shortly after 21:00 we were copied into an email from the Open Arms to the Search and Rescue authorities. We learned that the rescue boat was 36 nautical miles from the last known position and that the Open Arms would be heading to the distress site.

20 minutes later we received a panic called from the travellers. The boat was now taking on an alarming amount of water and they were afraid of sinking. They were able to send us a new position and we passed that on to the authorities and the civil fleet.

We received another phone call at 22:38. The situation had deteriorated further were not able to get a GPS position before the call broke. We could not reach the travellers by phone and we feared the worst.

Fortunately, at 02:00 on 11 September we received a phone call from the boat. We were unable to take a position, but at least we knew that they were still alive. We were able to re-establish contact and took an updated position. We passed the information onto the authorities, but were unable to raise MRCC Malta by phone whilst MRCC Rome refused to provide information about their actions.

We made contact with the boat again at 03:24 and passed on the new position. At 03:49 we were copied into an email from the Open Arms which informed the authorities that they had located the boat, that the boat was indeed in distress, that they had handed out lifejackets and were awaiting coordination from the competent authorities. By morning we were able to confirm that 64 men, 11 women and 2 children had been rescued.
tweet
The ~75 people (77 in the end) in distress were rescued by #Openarms! We are relieved they are rescued and not at risk of push-back to the Libyan warzone! Thanks to the civil fleet for your lifesaving work!