Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 16th September 2021

Case name: 2021_09_16-CM564

Situation: 45 travellers in urgent distress, reporting two deaths whilst we were still in contact. Found by Italian coast guard and brought to Italy.

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean

Summary of the case: On Thursday the 16th of September 2021 the Alarm Phone shift team received a direct call from a boat in distress in the Central Mediterranean Sea. Onboard were 45 travellers; 20 women, 11 children and 14 men. They had left from Tripoli two days earlier on a white rubber boat. The people were panicking and told us that the boat was taking in water and they feared it would soon sink. They gave us their GPS position, showing that they were in the Maltese search and rescue zone. They also told us that they had problems with the battery of their satellite phone. At 07.10 CEST we sent an email to all relevant authorities, alerting them to the distress of the travellers and stressing the urgency of the situation. We stayed in close contact with the travellers, followed as the situation onboard the rubber dinghy deteriorated and forwarded updates via email to the authorities about the location and situation of the travellers. Many times during the day we attempted to call the Maltese coastguard as they were the responsible authority, however, they did not pick up the phone or put us on hold. The same happened to the travellers when they called the Maltese coastguard. When calling the Italian coastguard, they only told us that they were not the competent authority and hung up on us. As we were not able to obtain confirmation that any coastguard had commenced a search and rescue operation, we additionally reached out to shipping companies of nearby merchant vessels. In a call to the travellers at 11.04 CEST they forwarded us a position showing that they were now 33 nm from Lampedusa. In the same call they told us that one woman onboard had died, and that they were out of food and water and the waves were increasing. An hour later, the travellers told us that they were running out of fuel. While speaking to us, they spotted a plane overhead which turned out to be Seabird, an aircraft belonging to rescue NGOs operating in the area. They as well relayed the position in which they had spotted the boat to all relevant rescue authorities. At 13.48 CEST we called the travellers again. They were getting increasingly desperate and told us that now also a child had died on the boat. This was the last time we spoke to the travellers. As we were monitoring their credit online we could also establish that they were not communicating with anyone else. We were never able to find out what happened to the travellers. The authorities never responded to any of our requests, but only told us that they had no information to give us. We later learned, that the travellers where most probably rescued to Italy by the Italian coastguard.

https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1438394527526621195