Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – March 5th 2021

Case name: 202010305-AEG750

Situation: Six young people separated from the rest of their group of travellers. No food or water, left waiting for almost a day, taken to Kara Tepe camp

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Aegaen Sea

Position : 38°58'06.5"N 26°26'09.5"E

Summary of Case
In the morning of March 5th a group of six young people, including a mother and baby, called us relating they had lost the remainder of their original group and were stranded in the South of Lesvos without food or water. According to the stranded group, the baby had a fiever and was vomiting, two people were in critical condition, having difficulties breathing. We informed authorities at 08.14 CET, forwarding the GPS position we had received. The group was very concerned about the possibility of a push back. We followed up the e-mail to authorities with a call to MRCC Piraeus at 08.35 CET who merely confirmed the reception of our e-mail.

At 09.30 CET the group of stranded people related that their situation was very dire and the baby still had a fever, the mother urgently asking for help. Upon calling authorities in Piraeus at 10.00 CET the operator said they had forwarded the information to the ‘relevant border authorities’ but did not inform us which authority they were referring to. Half an hour later, after seveal unsuccessful attemps at calling Mytilini port authority the answering officer copied the information we provided and said someone would search the area of the GPS position we had sent. At 12.00 CET the stranded group called us again, reiterating the dire situation they were in with no food, water, and several people in critical health condition. Upon re-calling Mytilini port authority, the responding operator denied any knowledge of this case we had previously spoken to their collegue about. We were provided with a number of another office to call. At 13.22 CET this office informed us they had searched the area but found nothing.

We sent another e-mail to authorities at 14.50 CET, urging them to act. For an hour afterwards, no authority we called answered their phones. When Mytilini finally responded to our call the operator repeated that no one had been found at the GPS position we had received from the stranded group of people. At 17.20 CET we received an updated gps postion from the stranded group of people which we forwarded to authorities via e-mail and phone. Our last contact to the group of people was some 20 minutes later when the group informed us a car was passing them.

At 19.21 CET we called authorities in Mytilini who informed us they had found a group of ten people at the position we provided at 17.27 CET. The people had been taken to Kara Tepe approximately an hour ago.

At 13.00 CET March 6th a relative of a person from the stranded group of people informed us that all six people had been found and all but the mother and baby taken to the camp in Kara Tepe and were in good health. We hope they will be able to apply for asylum soon so that they can continue their journey.

Twitter Chronology:

March 05th

08.50 CET https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1367742490741252096

11.00 CET https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1367776886496104451

16.43 CET https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1367865594582863876

March 6th

14.55 CET https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1368198449896820746