Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 20th February 2021

Case name: 2021_02_20-CM375
Situation: 110 travellers who had departed from Tripoli in distress. The fate of the boat remains unknown with the possibility that they have been intercepted and returned to Libya. 
Status of WTM Investigation: Unconfirmed
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case:
In the evening of Saturday the 20th of February, the Alarm Phone was called by a boat in distress carrying 110 travellers, including 5 women and 5 children. The white rubber boat had departed the previous night from Tripoli and the engine was no longer working. At 22:45 CET our shift team informed the Maltese and Italian authorities via email. We tried to call back the travellers during the whole night, unfortunately however, we were never able to reach them. The following morning we called the so-called Libyan coastguard who informed us that they had “rescued” two boats nearby the Bouri oil platform, one of the boats was carrying around 100 people. After this call we tried to call back the so-called Libyan coastguard in order to get further information on the kind of boat “rescued”, however they did not give us this information. After no longer being able to contact the travellers themselves or the so-called Libyan coastguard, at 18:35h our shift team sent an email to the Libyan authorities requesting further information on the boats they had intercepted. After many more unsuccessful attempt to reach the so-called Libyan coastguard we were only able to speak to someone the following morning, however we were only told that there had been only one “rescue” the previous day with approximately 70/75 people on board. Unfortunately we were not able to recieve further information on this case which remains unsolved. 

Tweets
20/02
22:58 : https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1363246249550483457?s=19