Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 23rd December 2020
Case name: 2020_12_23-WM542
Situation: 56 people leave Western Sahara and are rescued to Fuerteventura
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean

Summary of the Case: At 17:27h CET on 23 December 2020, we were given information about a boat carrying 48 men, 7 women and one child. The boat had left Laayoune shortly after midnight. Unsurprisingly, we could not reach the boat as they would have been well out of sight of the nearest phone mast and they were not carrying a satellite phone. We alerted the Spanish search and rescue authority Salvamento Maritimo on Las Palmas to the boat. They told us that they are busy, had recently rescued a boat of 62 people and had sent out their search plane south of Fuerteventura. We followed up with an email.
A second person got in touch with us about this boat and they were able to give us the nationalities of the people on board. We passed this information on by to Salvamento Maritimo. Night then fell and, although we continued trying to reach the boat overnight, we were unable to do so. The relatives of the travelers who had been in touch were also not able to provide any more information.
The next piece of news we had was that 10:45h on 24 December when Salvamento Maritimo told us that the Moroccan Navy, the Marine Royale had rescued a boat in the area. We contacted MRCC Rabat to confirm that they had rescued a boat carrying 45 people and were still searching for other vessels. We let the Salvamento Maritimo know that our boat was still unaccounted for.
We continued trying to reach the boat throughout the afternoon and through the night. We had no luck. We kept up our communication MRCC Rabat and Salvamento Maritimo. It was clear that both organisations were very busy and had rescued some boats, but that our boat was not among them. Shortly after 01:20h on 25 December another relative of somebody on board got in touch. He told us that he had last spoken to the boat at 05:00 on 24 December. They had informed that they had engine trouble and were still in sight of the Western Saharan coast. They also gave us two more phone numbers. We emailed Salvamento Maritimo asking for an update and passing on the new numbers.
Once the world was awake on Christmas morning, we put out the following tweet:
4 boats in distress in the Western Med and Atlantic!

- Two boats with 56 & 8 people, heading to #CanaryIslands have been missing for 2 days.
- Two boats with 30 & 5 people heading to #Spain departed yesterday & have not arrived yet.

We hope they will be searched & rescued soon
We spoke to both the MRCC Rabat, who were still searching, and Salvamento Maritimo in Las Palmas, who promised to send out their search plane. Just after 13:00h the first relative got in touch with us again. He confirmed that the last contact to the boat was around 05:00h and that at the time the boat was drifting insight of the Western Saharan coast. He was also able to provide a GPS position from 04:00 CET on 24 December. We passed on the position to the Salvamento Maritimo.
We continued searching for information throughout the afternoon, night and morning 26 December. We could not find anything, although we were able to observe the Salvamento Maritimo working hard. At 14:20h we put out the following tweet:
According to relatives, the boat with 8 people we were informed of, arrived in #CanaryIslands! Unfortunately, there is still no trace of the 56 people who left Laayoune on the night of 23 Dec. They were searched for by air but not found.
We fear the worse & hope they are alive.
At 16:10h CET on 26 December, the first relative contacted us to say that Helena Maleno, the journalist, had been in touch with him to say that she had been in touch with the boat and that they were now close to Fuerteventura. This was exciting news, but it wasn’t clear if the boat under discussion was in fact our boat. It appeared from the messages and Salvamento Maritimo, the boat being talked about was being rescued but had 42 people on board. Fortunately, as the afternoon turned to evening, our contact people got in touch to say that they had been able to make phone contact with the boat. The boat was still at sea, the people were out of moroccan water and clearly close to Fuerteventura. Just before 17:00, we phoned Salvamento Maritimo who said that they located a boat that matched everything we knew about the boat we were looking for. They said they were waiting for a larger asset to arrive to carry out the rescue. We informed all the relatives we were in touch with. At 21:08 we contacted Salvamento Maritimo who confirmed the boat had been rescued. We gave the good news to the worried relatives and put out one last tweet:
We just spoke to @CGTsalvamento, who confirmed they just rescued a rubber boat with 57 people matching the description of the boat we were alerted to! They will disembark in #GranCanaria in a couple of hours. We are relieved & happy to share the good news with worried relatives!