03/06: Five men between Al Hoceima and Motril, intercepted by the Moroccan Navy.

04.06.2021 / 12:20 / Western Mediterranean Sea

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations –3rd June 2021

Case name: 2021_06_03-WM625

Situation: Five men between Al Hoceima and Motril. Interception by the Moroccan Navy confirmed through relatives.

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the case:

On the 3rd of June 2021 shortly before midnight, our shift team was alerted to a distress case by a family member of someone on the boat. According to the relative, there were five men on board of a black and grey rubber boat. They had started from Al Hoceima, Morocco, towards Motril, Spain, in the mornig of the same day. Our shift team called the Spanish Search and Rescue organization Salvamento Marítimo (SM) in Almería at 00h50 CEST and sent them an e-mail with all information afterwards. On the 4th of June at 14h32 CEST, our shift team could get through to the travelers on the phone for the first time, but the line was too bad to understand more about their situation. It was only in the evening of the 5th of June that the families of the travelers confirmed to us that they had been intercepted by the Moroccan Navy. At that time, they where at the police station in Al Hoceima.

Credibility:

Border police patrols
While the exact location of patrols is of course constantly changing, this line indicates the approximate boundary routinely patrolled by border guards’ naval assets. In the open sea, it usually correspond to the outer extent of the contiguous zone, the area in which “State may exercise the control necessary to prevent infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws” (UNCLOS, art. 33). Data source: interviews with border police officials.
Coastal radars
Approximate radar beam range covered by coastal radars operating in the frame of national marine traffic monitoring systems. The actual beam depends from several different parameters (including the type of object to be detected). Data source: Finmeccanica.
Exclusive Economic Zone
Maritime area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea in which the coastal state exercises sovereign rights for the purposes of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, the seabed and its subsoil and the superjacent waters. Its breadth is 200 nautical miles from the straight baselines from which the territorial sea is measured (UNCLOS, Arts. 55, 56 and 57). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans
Frontex operations
Frontex has, in the past few years, carried out several sea operations at the maritime borders of the EU. The blue shapes indicate the approximate extend of these operations. Data source: Migreurop Altas.
Mobile phone coverage
Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network coverage. Data source: Collins Mobile Coverage.
Oil and gas platforms
Oil and gas platforms in the Mediterranean. Data source:
Search and Rescue Zone
An area of defined dimensions within which a given state is has the responsibility to co-ordinate Search and Rescue operations, i.e. the search for, and provision of aid to, persons, ships or other craft which are, or are feared to be, in distress or imminent danger. Data source: IMO availability of search and rescue (SAR) services - SAR.8/Circ.3, 17 June 2011.
Territorial Waters
A belt of sea (usually extending up to 12 nautical miles) upon which the sovereignty of a coastal State extends (UNCLOS, Art. 2). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans