Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 27th June 2021
Case name: 2021_06_27-WM635
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 62 travellers in distress in the Atlantic Sea; 40 of them died in a shipwreck while 22 were rescued by fishermen.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean

Summary
On Sunday the 27th of June 2021 in the early hours of the morning, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted by a relative to a boat in distress in the Atlantic sea. Onboard the boat were 62 travellers, including 15 women and two children, who had left from Laayoune the previous day at midnight, heading towards the Canary Islands. The relative did not know their exact position. At 01.10 CEST we called the Spanish search and rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo and alerted them to the distress of the travellers. They told us that there had already been many rescues that day, amongst others a boat with 57 people, including 15 women and five children. This rescue was as well the only one we were able to find information about in Spanish media that could possibly match the case we were alerted to. However, the relative was convinced that this was a different boat and that his loved ones were still at sea. Despite trying many times throughout the night and the following day, we were never able to establish contact to the travellers. In the evening we were informed by the relative that the boat had broken shortly after departing from Laayoune. 22 survivors had been rescued by local fishermen, while 40 people, including 10 women and the two children had died in the shipwreck. We are very saddened and angry that these 40 people became victims of the European border regime, which is forcing people to undertake a deadly journey in order to exercise their right to freedom of movement. All our solidarity is with the friends and families of those who lost their lives at sea and with the 22 survivors who had to endure this traumatic experience.