Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – September 26th 2021

Case name: 2021_09_26-WM728

Situation: ~30 women, eight children, twelve men shipwrecked counting five survivors

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Atlantic

Summary of Case: In the evening of September 26th a relative alerted us to a group of 30 women, eight children and around twelve men in distress on the Atlantic route. The caller related the around 50 travellers had departed Dakhla in a wooden boat more than 61 hours previously. We forwarded the distress call to authorities at 21.20 CEST. An operator of the Spanish Search and Rescue organisation Salvamento Marítimo (SM) confirmed a SAR operations for eight boats was currently underway but did not provide further details. Throughout the night and following two days we tried to establish direct contact to the around 50 people in distress to no avail. Authorities remained exceptionally uncooperative, refusing to provide any information concerning the case. Weather conditions had continually worsened over the past days. By night fall of September 30th we still had had no news of the missing group of travellers. In the evening of October 1st the relative who had first alerted us to the distress case related they believed the boat to have shipwrecked and only five people had survived. Information provided by further relatives and the media remained varied and we were unable to match it to the details initially provided by the relative. We condemn the European migration policies forcing people to resort to these deadly migration routes.

Tweets

September 29th

10.22 CEST

October 2nd

18.46 CEST