Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 28th of February 2021

Case name: 2021_28_02-CM382

Situation: 84 people (including at least 5 children) had to spent one night at sea with a broken engine, without food or life jackets and with water entering the boat.

Status of WTM Investigation: closed

Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean

Summary of the case:

On February 28th Alarm Phone was called by a satellite phone by 84 people in distress. We called RCC Malta at 20:19h CET and sent an Email to authorities and NGO’s to inform them about the case. There were at least 5 children on board and they had been at sea for about two days already. We gave the GPS-position of the boat to the authorities and NGO’s. The people were in urgent need of rescue because water was entering the boat and we were not sure if they had any life jackets on board. The people were desperate and asking for help.

The travellers called again to give us an update on their GPS-position. They were moving very slowly since their engine was constantly turning on and off again.

At 20:46h CET we informed authorities and NGO’s via Email about the updated GPS-position and the state of the engine. Also, we called RCC Malta at 20:49h CET but no one picked up.

Within the next hours during the night we constantly tried to reach MRCC Rome and RCC Malta, but no one responded. We sent Emails with updated GPS-positions and urgent appeals for a rescue operation every two hours.

At 03:00h CET we finally reached MRCC Rome, but they told us, they were not responsible and we should call RCC Malta. Unfortunately RCC Malta didn’t pick up the phone.

Meanwhile, also Sea-Watch tried to contact authorities in Malta and Italy. They have been involved in 5 rescue operations of a total of 363 people and were overcrowded and out of life jackets to distribute. They were in urgent need of support by the Coast Guards to coordinate the rescue operations. They sent out their call for help to RCC Malta and MRCC Rome via Email and also public via Twitter:

https://twitter.com/SeaWatchItaly/status/1366141978904256512

At 03:07h CET we get the info that an Italian patrol boat was on the way to the scene, but we could not reach neither authorities nor the people on board during the whole night.

In the next morning we were informed that the people have been rescued and brought to Lampedusa.