14/08: 47 travellers missing in the Atlantic Sea

15.08.2021 / 12:01 / Atltantic Sea

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 14th August 2021

Case name: 2021_08_14-WM673

Situation: 47 travellers in distress in the Atlantic Sea; Alarm Phone was never able to find out what happened to them.

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Atltantic Sea

Summary: On Saturday the 14th of August 2021, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted by a relative to a group of 47 travellers, including eight children, in distress in the Atlantic Sea. They had left from Dakhla, heading towards Gran Canaria, the previous morning at around 02.00 CEST. They had thus been at sea for almost 24 hours. We were not able to reach the travellers directly, nor find out their exact location. At 01.15 CEST we alerted the Spanish search and rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo to tracellers in distress. They confirmed that they would carry out a search and rescue operation involving one of their aircrafts as soon as the sun had risen.

We continued trying to reach the travellers without success. In the evening, Salvamento Maritimo told us that their aircraft was still searching for the travellers, So far they had not found them. Just before midnight they paused the search for the night, but confirmed that they would continue in the morning. The following day we Salvamento Maritimo kept looking for the travellers without results, and the Moroccan navy told us that they had not intercepted a boat matching the description we gave them.

After several days of attempting to reach the travellers, we had to close the case without knowing what happened to them. The relative we were in contact with also did not have news, and we were not able to match this boat with any case mentioned in local media. We fear that the travellers have become some of the countless invisible victims of the European border regime, forcing people to embark on increasingly dangerous journeys.

Tweet about the case: https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1428344090526162952

Credibility:

Border police patrols
While the exact location of patrols is of course constantly changing, this line indicates the approximate boundary routinely patrolled by border guards’ naval assets. In the open sea, it usually correspond to the outer extent of the contiguous zone, the area in which “State may exercise the control necessary to prevent infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws” (UNCLOS, art. 33). Data source: interviews with border police officials.
Coastal radars
Approximate radar beam range covered by coastal radars operating in the frame of national marine traffic monitoring systems. The actual beam depends from several different parameters (including the type of object to be detected). Data source: Finmeccanica.
Exclusive Economic Zone
Maritime area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea in which the coastal state exercises sovereign rights for the purposes of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, the seabed and its subsoil and the superjacent waters. Its breadth is 200 nautical miles from the straight baselines from which the territorial sea is measured (UNCLOS, Arts. 55, 56 and 57). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans
Frontex operations
Frontex has, in the past few years, carried out several sea operations at the maritime borders of the EU. The blue shapes indicate the approximate extend of these operations. Data source: Migreurop Altas.
Mobile phone coverage
Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network coverage. Data source: Collins Mobile Coverage.
Oil and gas platforms
Oil and gas platforms in the Mediterranean. Data source:
Search and Rescue Zone
An area of defined dimensions within which a given state is has the responsibility to co-ordinate Search and Rescue operations, i.e. the search for, and provision of aid to, persons, ships or other craft which are, or are feared to be, in distress or imminent danger. Data source: IMO availability of search and rescue (SAR) services - SAR.8/Circ.3, 17 June 2011.
Territorial Waters
A belt of sea (usually extending up to 12 nautical miles) upon which the sovereignty of a coastal State extends (UNCLOS, Art. 2). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans