Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 24th of December 2020
Case name: 2020_12_24-WM544
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to a group of travellers in the Altantic who were finally rescued and brought to Las Palmas.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: In the early morning of the 24th of December 2020, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted by a relative to a boat in distress in the Atlantic. Onboard the boat was his brother, who had left from Dakhla on the 22nd of December between 18.00 and 20.00 CET, heading towards Las Palmas. The relative forwarded us the phone number of his brother, and told us that there were maybe eight people on board, but did not have much more information about the boat and the other travellers onboard it. He had last spoken to his brother around the time they left, on the 22nd at 18.00 CET. Despite trying continuously, we never managed to establish a direct contact to the travellers while they were at sea.
At 10.45 CET we called the Spanish search and rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo and passed on the information that we had. However, as we did not have very much information about the group of travellers and boat, it was very difficult to match the case with boats that had arrived to the Canary Islands. This problem persisted over the following days, where we learned about rescue operations carried out by Salvamento Maritimo and the Moroccan navy, but we were unable to verify whether this group of travellers were safely on land. However, Salvamento Maritimo informed us that they kept searching the area with their aircrafts, and we were able to monitor their trajectories online. In the meantime, we sent out the following tweet, informing the public about the four ongoing distress cases we were alerted to:
“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”
On the 26th of December at 12.56 CET, the brother we had been in touch with told us that the boat had arrived safely to the Canary Islands. We published to 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.


Only weeks later, on the 12th of Januray, did we manage to get in touch with one of the travellers. He told us that he had reached Las Palmas and that they had been detained without reason and sentenced to two months in prison, despite claiming asylum. Further he told us that 12 of the people had been deported. He went on to give the following testimony:
“…I am still in detention, when we were at sea, the sea was rough for five days of suffering and fear, and we almost drowned if it weren't for luck with us.
They gave us clothes and we were taken to the migrant camp, we stayed there for four days and then they took us to the test and asked us some questions, then the police took us to another island (Santa Cruz, Tenerife) to the immigration detention center.
Today is fifteen days while we are detained here. Every week people are deported who came with us in the boat to Morocco for no reason.”