Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 25th November 2020
Case name: 2020_11_25-WM533
Situation: 27 travellers leaving from Dakhla towards the Canary Islands, their fate remains unclear.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean
Summary
On Wednesday the 25th of November at 23.50 CET, the Alarm Phone was alerted by a relative to a group of 27 travellers, including eight women and a child, on their way to the Canary Islands. They had left from Dakhla already on Monday the 23rd at 04.00 CET. Neither we nor the relative were able to reach the travellers, despite continuously trying during the next many days. At 00.33 we called the Spanish search and rescue orgaisation Salvamento Maritimo and passed on the information we had. At 01.19 we additionally called the Guardia Civil. They confirmed that they were looking for the boat.
The following day at 11.45 we called Salvamento Maritimo again. They informed us that they had rescued a boat with 28 people, but only one woman and a boy onboard. At 12.50 we called the Guardia Civil, who informed us of a rescue of 26 people including six women and no minors. The officer confirmed that they were still searching for the boat we had alerted them to.
The following morning we called both Salvamento Maritimo and Guardia Civil again, but they were still not able to match our information with any boat they had rescued. This was repeated in the afternoon where it was still not possible to receive a confirmation, but Salvamento Maritimo confirmed that they were still searching for the boat. The Guardia Civil later asked us to call the National Police in order to match our information with arrivals, but they were also not able to provide us any information.
During the following days we called the authorities several times in order to confirm whether the people had been rescued. They informed us about rescues of boats with similar numbers of travellers, but no rescues matching our exact information.
On the 30th of November we decided that we would not continue calling the authorities every day. We are still trying to find out what happened to this group of travellers and we will update this report if we have any news.
Because of the large number of arrivals to the Canary Islands these days, and because travellers often do not have phone reception during most of the crossing, it is hard to match information and relatives often remain for a long time without news about what happened to their loved ones. This also means that it is hard to estimate how many boats disappear at sea on this route. According to IOM, for roughly every 20 people arriving to the Canary Island, one person loses their life during the journey, making this route the most deathly sea crossing to Europe. We hope very much that these travellers made it safely to the Canary Islands.