27/08: Group of travelers left for Canaries, brought back to Laayoune

28.08.2021 / 12:28 / Atlantic

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 27th August 2021

Case name: 2021_08_27-WM681

Situation: Unknown number of travelers leave from Laayoune (Western Sahara) towards Canary Islands, they are brought back to Laayoune.

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Atlantic

Summary of the case:

On the 27th of August 2021 at 12h07 CEST, the Alarm Phone was called by the relative of a person on a boat that had left from Tarfaya, Morocco, at 04h00 CEST on 25th of August in a red zodiac. The families had lost contact to their loved ones and were searching for information. Our shift team informed the Spanish Search and Rescue organization Salvamento Marítimo (SM) on Las Palmas by phone call and e-mail. In the evening, their search mission had not found the travelers. Later on, our shift team received the information that they had been picked up by a fishing boat. They had been transferred to Moroccan Navy. They brought them back to Tan Tan, where they were handed over to the police, and they brought them back to Laayoune.

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