Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 14th September 2021

Case name: 2021_09_14-CM562

Situation: 25 travellers in distress in the Central Med, rescued by Lampedusa.

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean

Summary of the case: On Tuesday the 14th of September in the evening, the Alarm Phone shift team received a call from a group of travellers in distress in the Central Mediterranean Sea.The group consisted of 25 people, including four children, who had left from Libya on a wooden boat. They told us that they were adrift as their engine had stopped running and that there were sick people onboard. We also managed to get the GPS position of the boat, showing that they were close to the Italian island Lampedusa. At 19.30 CEST we sent an email to all relevant rescue authorities, including rescue NGOs working in the area, alerting them to the distress of the travellers. We also gave the phone number of the Italian coastguard to the travellers so that they could call directly themselves. By monitoring the credit of their satellite phone online we could see that they were also in contact with others. We stayed in touch with the travellers, and from receiving updated positions we could see that they were barely moving. In a call with the travellers at 21.00 CEST they told us that their boat had started to take in water. Throughout the evening, we updated the Italian coastguard with any new information we were able to get from the boat. At 21.43 CEST we learned that a Tunisian fishing vessel was standing by the boat and had promised to stay with them until rescue arrived. At 23.03 CEST a relative told us that they just spoke to the travellers who had seen an approaching rescue vessel. After this, the phone of the travellers was no longer reachable, but the rescue was later confirmed.