04/01: 15 travelers leave from Oran, rescue by SM to Almería

05.01.2022 / 13:37 / Western Mediterranean

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 4th January 2022

Case name: 2022_01_04-WM004

Situation: 15 travelers (1 pregnant woman, 14 men) leave from Oran, Algeria. No news for 2 days. Rescue to Almería by SM.

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the case: On the 4th January 2022 at 05h45 CET, the Alarm Phone received a call from a friend of someone on a boat. Our shift team received a phone number, and could reach the people on the water at 06h00 CET. There were 15 travellers, one of them a pregnant women, and 14 men in distress. They had started from Oran, Algeria, on the 2nd January around 20h30 CET on a white boat. The travellers passed their GPS location which was in Spanish waters, and our shift team informed the Spanish Search and Rescue organization Salvamento Marítimo (SM) in Madrid and in Palma at 06h20 CET. Afterwards, we could not establish the contact to the travellers anymore, and for the next two days, we did not get a confirmation of the rescue from authorities. On the 6th January, the friend who had called us in the beginning informed us that the group had been rescued to Almería by SM on the 5th January.

Last update: 13:44 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