Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 22nd May 2021
Case name: 2021_05_22-CM444
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 200 travellers onboard two boats in the Central Med. Both boats were intercepted and brought back to Libya.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean

Summary of the case:
On Saturday the 22nd of May in the morning, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted by a relative to two white rubber boats in distress in the Central Mediterranean Sea. The two boats had left together in a convoy from Zawiya and were carrying around 200 travellers. At 09.33 CEST we sent an email to all relevant authorities alerting them to the situation of the travellers. We were never able to establish direct contact to the travellers despite attempting continuously all day. However, by monitoring the credit on their satellite phone we could see that they were also not in contact with others. As the weather in the region was bad, we feared that they were in a very dangerous situation. We therefore tried calling all numbers of the so-called Libyan coastguard in order to make sure the travellers would be rescued, but we were not able to reach them. Only at 17.13 CEST did we reach the so-called Libyan coastguard who told us that they were carrying out rescue of a boat off Zawiya. At 17.40 CEST the relative called us again to inform us that they had again spoken to people on the boat and that they had all been brought back to Libya by the so-called Libyan coastguard. They were at this point held detained in Tripoli, but the relative confirmed that everyone was alright.