Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 26th June 2021
Case name: 2021_06_26-CM483
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 103 travellers in distress in the Central Med. After many hours of no response from neither the Italian, Maltese or so-called Libyan coastguards, they were finally intercepted in a joint operation between Tunisia and Libya.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean

Summary of the case:
On Saturday the 26th of June 2021, the Alarm Phone shift team received a direct call from a wooden boat carrying 103 travellers, including women and children, on their way from Libya towards Italy. The travellers told us that waves were high and entering the boat, their engine had stopped working and they needed urgent assistance. We immediately attempted reaching the so-called Libyan coastguard to request a search and rescue operation, but were not able to get through to them. We were also not able to get through to the Italian coastguard to pass on the information we had about the distress case. At 19.30 we published the following tweet:
~103 lives at risk off Libya!

We were called by a boat with ~103 people in distress! Their engine stopped and water is entering the boat. The people need to be rescued immediately! Every second counts.
In the meantime, we stayed in close contact with the travellers who were panicking as their situation was deteriorating. They had tried calling both the Italian and Maltese coastguards themselves but without any sign of rescue arriving. At 21.26 CEST we tweeted again:
We just spoke to the people in distress on the phone. The weather is getting worse & they fear for their lives. They phoned Italy and Malta themselves, but both refuse responsibility. Meanwhile, the so-called Libyan Coast Guard is unreachable! We call on #Europe: rescue them now!
At 23.35 CEST the travellers gave us their updated position in a phone call, and told us that they suspected that people had died on the lower deck, but were not able to check as there was too much water inside. They repeated that they feared they would all die and that they were losing hope. We forwarded this information to all relevant authorities via email.
Throughout the night we stayed in touch with the travellers, and in the early morning we contacted the Tunisian coastguard. They informed us that there was a joint rescue operation ongoing, coordinated by the Tunisian coastguard and the so-called Libyan coastguard at the last position we had received from the travellers. They told us that 61of the travellers had been rescued by the Tunisian vessel and the remaining travellers by a Libyan vessel.