Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 19th September 2021

Case name: 2021_09_19-CM569

Situation: 13 travellers in distress in the Central Med, rescued by Ocean Viking.

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean

Summary of the case: In the early hours of the morning on Sunday the 19th of September 2021, the Alarm Phone shift team received a direct call from a boat in distress in the Central Mediterranean Sea. Onboard were 13 travellers, including three children. They told us they were travelling on a red and blue fiber glass boat. The travellers gave us their GPS position, which showed that they were close to the Italian island Lampedusa. They told us that they were drifting as they had run out of fuel and that they feared their boat would capsize due to large waves. At 01.04 CEST we send an email to the relevant rescue authorities, including rescue NGOs operating in the area, relaying all information we had about the distress case. We also called the Italian coastguard who took our information by phone. We stayed in contact with the travellers and were able to forward updated positions to the authorities. Online, we monitored the trajectory of the NGO vessel Ocean Viking, and could see that it was approaching the position of the boat in distress. At 03.22 CEST the travellers told us in a phone call that they could see a big boat approaching and that this boat had launched its RHIBs. Later in the morning it was confirmed that the travellers had been rescued by Ocean Viking.