Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 26th June 2021
Case name: 2021_06_26-CM484
Situation: 104 people in distress in the Central Med. 102 of them rescued to Tunisia, whilst two of them died. Their bodies were brought to Tunisia.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean

Summary of the case:
On Saturday the 26th of June 2021 in the evening, the Alarm Phone shift team was called by a boat in distress in the Central Mediterranean Sea. Onboard was a group of 104 travellers, including 25 women, who were in urgent distress as their engine had broken down. During several calls with the travellers we could hear that they were panicking as they repeated that they were going to die. The travellers had left at around 22.00 CEST the previous day from Libya, and gave us their GPS position. At 20.20 CEST we sent an email to all relevant authorities with all information we had, urging them to rescue the travellers. At 20.26 CEST we called the Tunisian coastguard, who told us that the nearby vessel Maridive would take charge of the operation. In a call to the travellers at 20.40 CEST they told us that they saw a big vessel, presumably Maridive, and would try to signal it. In two later calls to the Tunisian coastguard they told us that the Maridive would only stand by and that the Tunisian coastguard would send their own asset to carry out the rescue operation. At 23.03 CEST the travellers told us that the big vessel close to them was making their situation more dangerous by creating waves, making their small boat unstable. They further reported that two of the travellers had already lost their lives. At 23.48 CEST the Tunisian coastguard informed us that they were on scene, in the process of rescuing the travellers.
The following morning, the Tunisian coastguard confirmed to us that they had rescued 102 travellers from the boat and retrieved two dead bodies.
As we closed the case with this sad outcome, we tweeted:
PUSHBACK to TUNISIA! The ~100 people who were in distress at sea last night were pushed back to #Tunisia Unfortunately at least 2 people lost their lives. How did they die? #Maridive601 was monitoring the boat but not rescuing. Why? Tunisia is NOT a place of safety!
Once again, we are devastated to see the closed borders of Fortress Europe claiming the lives of people searching for a decent future. We continue to condemn these inhuman policies.