Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 22nd July 2021

Case name: 2021_07_22-CM510

Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to around 150 travellers in urgent distress in international waters, after a long time of non-assistance, resulting in the loss of lives, they were finally intercepted.

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean

Summary of the case:


On Thursday the 22nd of July 2021, the Alarm Phone shift team received a direct call from a boat in urgent distress in international waters. The travellers had left from Zuwarah, Libya the day before at 21.00 CEST on a wooden boat with two decks. There were around 150 travellers onboard the boat, of which 33 were women and 17 children. The travellers were panicking, telling us that water was entering the boat and that people were dying. None of the travellers were wearing life jackets and their engine had stopped working. At 11.41 CEST we sent an email alerting all relevant rescue authorities to the distress of the travellers.
During the day we stayed in close contact with the travellers, monitoring their situation and updating all authorities with GPS positions and relevant information about the situation onboard. We were also able to recharge credit to the satellite phone onboard, allowing the travellers to communicate. In addition emails, we also alerted the so-called Libyan coastguard via phone, but were not able to establish whether they were commencing a search and rescue operation.
At 13:22 we alerterd the public to the distress situation with the following tweet: SOS! ~100 people adrift off #Libya! We were called by people in distress. They report they lost the engine and people went overboard! We informed authorities to launch a rescue immediately! People need a place of safety which can only be Europe!

In a call to the travellers at 14.00 CEST they told us that 20 travellers had died. A lot of water was entering the boat, and the travellers were trying to scoop it out with containers. They stressed that the situation was very urgent and that more children were dying. In a call to the so-called Libyan coastguard they confirmed that they were launching a search and rescue operation, however, the travellers told us that the so-called Libyan coastguard were not responding to their calls.
At 14.22 CEST we updated our previous tweet: We managed to establish contact again with the ~100 people in distress, who told us that 20 people had already fallen into the water! People are desperately asking for rescue. We demand immediate rescue to a place of safety! #DontLetThemDrown
The hours passed without rescue arriving, and we stayed in contact with the travellers as their situation deteriorated.
At 17:52 CEST we published the following tweet: UPDATE: Contrary to their claims, the so-called Libyan Coastguard has not reached the boat in distress yet. The people are still out there at sea. Yet another example how their only aim is to prevent people from crossing to Europe, and not to save lives.

At 19.05 CEST we again emailed all authorities, demanding immediate action and scandalizing that they had been alerted to the distress situation all day without responding adequately.
Online, we could see that a merchant vessel was approaching the location of the travellers and moving in what looked like a search pattern. However, we later learned that the merchant vessel had left the scene as the travellers were intercepted. Through several calls to both the so-called Libya and the Tunisian coastguards we were not able to establish if the survivors ha been brought to Libya or Tunisia. But according to all information we were able to obtain, they had been intercepted to one of those countries.
In the evening we tweeted: According to our last info the vessel METEORA left the scene to facilitate a pushback.
Authorities keep silent about the fatalities reported by the people to us on the phone.
Dangerous routes and boats wouldn't exist if there were freedom of movement FOR ALL!

We condemn this practice of non-assistance, leading to the death of travellers which might had been prevented if search and rescue had been launched immediately.