Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 1st of December 2020

Case name: 2020_12_01-CM334

Situation: 27 travelers (ten women, four children) started from Jbeniana, Tunisia. Contact to a relative broke off. People returned to Tunisia after one night on the water.

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On the 1st of December 2020 at 13:30h CET, the Alarm Phone was called by a person whose sister was on a boat in distress. There were 27 travellers, among them ten women and four children. They had departed the night before at 22:00h CET Jbeniana (between Sfax and Madhia) in Tunisia in a green wooden boat. He had received a distress call at 11:00h CET in the morning, then the contact had broken off. He did not have a GPS location of the boat. Reportedly, the engine had stopped working and the people could not see any land and were afraid of sinking. He passed us the phone number of his sister. Our shift team repeatedly tried and reach the travellers, but without success. At 14:39h CET, we informed the Italian, Maltese and Tunisian authorities via e-mail and passed all the information we had. At 14:54h CET, we called the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Rome and passed them the information on the phone. At 15:44h CET, our shift team got through to the travellers and learned that they had returned by themselves and were back in Tunisia.