03/01: 7 travelers leave from Algiers, rescued to Ibiza

04.01.2022 / 13:31 / Western Mediterranean

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 3rd January 2022

Case name: 2022_01_03-WM002

Situation: 7 travelers (including 1 minor) leave from Algiers, rescue to Ibiza

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the case: On the 3rd January 2022 at 17h20 CET, the Alarm Phone received a call from a relative looking for their brother on a boat together with 6 other travelers, including one minor. They had left from Algiers on 31st December in the evening. They family had lost contact the day before, the 2nd of January in the afternoon. Our shift did not not receive a GPS location or phone number from the boat. We alerted the Spanish Search and Rescue organization Salvamento Marítimo (SM) in Almería at 17h32 CET. As a storm was coming up, we urged the authorities to start a search operation with air support. They told us there had been many rescues that day and could not give us details. Later at night, we learned from the families that the travelers had been rescued and brought to Ibiza the day before.

Twitter:

03.01.2022, 10h24 CET: https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1478114956126085123?s=21

03.01.2022, 10h24 CET: https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1478114958881837060

04.01.2022, 09h55 CET: https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1478289027577094146

04.01.2022, 09h55 CET: https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1478289027577094146

Last update: 13:46 Aug 22, 2022

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