Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 29th March 2021

Case name: 2021_03_29-CM393

Situation: 88 people, including 15 women, 8 children and one baby were screaming for help, panicking and crying, while their boat was drifting close to Lampedusa – no responding of authorities

Status of WTM Investigation: open

Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case:

In the evening of March 29th, Alarm Phone was alerted by a boat in distress in the Maltese SAR zone. The 88 people left Libya probably at the 28th of March. On board were 15 women, 8 children and one baby. We alerted the authorities and NGO’s at 19:41 CEST, 29th of March and asked for their immediate rescue since the people were screaming for help and panicking, the children were crying and the weather conditions were very bad. We called RCC Malta repeatedly, but nobody picked up the phone. The only one responding to our alert was Open Arms, but they were currently busy with the rescue of another boat.

We tried to call the people on board to make sure, they were okay, but it took a long while until we could reach them again. They gave us a new GPS-Position, which we gave to the Maltese and Italian Coast Guards as well as the NGO’s at 03:10 CEST on March 30th. The people on board were exhausted and the boat was drifting, they were in urgent need of rescue. Apparently neither Malta nor Italy felt responsible for the case and when we called MRCC Rome, they refused to speak to us. Once more another example of how the authorities were risking lives of people at sea while spending their time passing responsibility.

There have been many arrivals in Lampedusa at March 30th, but we don’t know if the people who called us, were among them. Our last contact with them was at 06:20 CEST, March 30th, but we could not reach them after that anymore. We truly hope, they have made it to safety!

Twitter chronology:

21: 15 CEST: https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1376613670994731011?s=21