Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 3rd October 2021

Case name: 2021_10_03-CM585

Situation: 49 travellers in distress in the Central Med, after many hours of non-assistance, they were finally rescued by a Libyan merchant vessel.

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean

Summary of the case: On Sunday the 3rd of October 2021 in the late evening, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to a group of 49 travellers, including two women and two children, in distress in the Central Mediterranean Sea. The travellers had left the night before on a blue wooden boat and told us that they were almost out of fuel. We alerted all relevant rescue authorities to the distress case, forwarding the information we had including the GPS position of the travellers. In a call to the travellers at 00.15 CEST they told us that some people had fallen in the water and were dying. At the same time they provided us their position, showing that they were in the Maltese search and rescue zone. We stayed in contact with the travellers throughout the night, and were able to update the Maltese coastguard with their position and deteriorating situation. We forwarded the information to the Italian coastguard as well, however, their only response was that they were not the competent authority. At 01.27 CEST the travellers told us that three people had now fallen in the water, and one woman was dead. From the positions we received from the traveller we could see that they were drifting, and urged the authorities to conduct search and rescue as the travellers would not be able to reach land by themselves. At 09.27 CEST the travellers informed us that they saw an aircraft above them, corresponding to the information that the NGO Pilotes Volontaires believed to have found the boat in question. They also told us that they were still drifting, many people onboard were sick and they had run out of food. As we got no confirmation from the official rescue authorities about an ongoing search and rescue operation, we additionally attempted to contact companies of merchant vessels in the vicinity as well as putting pressure on the coastguards to coordinate rescue with one of these. Although the authorities never were willing to respond to our requests, in the evening we learned that the travellers had been rescued by a Libyan merchant vessel.

Tweets about the case: https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1444922049873514500?s=21