16/11: 10 people dead and 99 rescued by NGO vessel Geo Barents

17.11.2021 / 19:13 / Central Mediterranean Sea

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 16th November 2021

Case name: 2021_11_16-CM627

Situation: Around 100 travellers in distress in the Central Med, 99 rescued by NGO vessel Geo Barents, 10 bodies recovered.

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean

Summary of the case: On Tuesday the 16th of October 2021, the Alarm Phone shift team received a direct call from a boat in distress in the Central Mediterranean Sea. Onboard were around 100 travellers, including 10 women and five children. The travellers had left from Libya two days earlier on a white wooden boat. They told us that several people were sick and they had problems with their engine. We alerted all relevant authorities to the distress of the travellers, forwarding their GPS position. We stayed in contact with the travellers, and updated the authorities with new positions as well as information about the deteriorating situation onboard the boat, as some travellers were reported to have fallen into the water. We later learned that the travellers were rescued by the NGO vessel Geo Barents operated by Doctors without Borders. Sadly, we also learned that 10 of the travellers on the lower deck had died and that Geo Barents had only been able to recover their bodies.

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