17/10: 85 travellers in distress in the Central Med, fate unclear

18.10.2021 / 18:38 / Central Mediterranean

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 17th October 2021

Case name: 2021_10_17-CM595

Situation: 85 travellers in urgent distress close to the Libyan coast. Alarm Phone never able to establish what happened to the travellers.

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean

Summary of the case: On Sunday the 17th of October 2021, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted by a relative to a group of around 85 travellers, including many women and children, some of them disabled, in distress in the Central Mediterranean Sea. We managed to reach the travellers who told us that they had left from Garabuli on a rubber boat, and that water was entering their boat. Their engine had broken down leaving the boat adrift and the people onboard were panicking and requesting urgent rescue. The travellers were still very close to shore and told us that they could see the light of a city close by. We forwarded all the information we had to all the relevant rescue authorities. An officer from the so-called Libyan coast guard claimed on the phone that they had been looking for the travellers in the indicated area but had not been able to localise them. The Italian coastguard refused to get involved in the operation, and only referred to it as a Libyan responsibility. We were never again able to reach the travellers, nor to get a confirmation from any rescue authority that they had found the travellers or even that they were still searching for them. We therefore do not know if the travellers were found, made it back by themselves or remain missing to this day.

Tweets about the case: https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1450052458990944257?s=21

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