Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 1st July 2021

Case name: 2021_07_01-WM640
Situation: 12 travelers left from Al Hoceima, arrived in Motril, Spain. No news for 5 days.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case:
On the 1st of July 2021 at 19h09 CEST, the Alarm Phone was alerted to a boat in distress by a familiy member of someone on the boat. They had lost contact to the 12 travelers. The boat had left from Al Hoceima, Morocco at 03h00 CEST the night before. In a first contact with the people on the boat at 19.30 CEST, our shift team did not manage to get proper informations due to difficult communication. Afterwards, it could not get through to the travelers again, but informed the Spanish Search and Rescue organization Salvamento Marítimo (SM) at 21h24 CEST via phone call and e-mail. The next four days, the travelers were still not reachable and authorities could not provide us details about their rescues. On the 5th of July around noon, we received an e-mail from the Maritime Rscue Coordination Center (MRCC) in Madrid in which they provided an e-mail adress and a phone number from the Red Cross Spain where informations about the rescues from the last days should be provided. Our shift teams tried this, but could not get through on the phone number. We also tried with the mailadress, but then, in the evening of the 5th July, we learned via the family member that the boat had arrived in Motril two or three days ago. We do not know if the travelers were rescued or arrived autonomously.

Twitter chronology:

03.07.2021:
09h34 CEST https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1411226545251885058