Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 5th March 2022Case name: 2022_03_05-CM045
Situation: 41 travellers in distress in the Central Med, intercepted by the so-called Libyan coastguard.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean
Summary of the case: On Saturday the 5th of March 2022, the Alarm Phone shift team received a direct call from a boat in distress in the Central Mediterranean Sea. Onboard were 41 travellers, including two pregnant women and a child. They told us that they had left from Zawiyah, Libya at 04.00 CET the same morning. As they did not have a satellite phone onboard, the connection was very bad and we knew that once they were far enough away from the coast they would lose the possibility to communicate with anyone. They told us that water was entering the boat, and managed to send us their GPS position. We immediately alerted the relevant search and rescue authorities to the distress situation via email. In addition, we attempted to call many different phone numbers of the so-called Libyan coastguard but were unable to reach them. After this, we lost contact to the travellers. At 20.35 CET the so-called Libyan coastguard told us that they had intercepted a boat matching the description we had given. Soon after, a relative of one of the travellers informed us that they had just spoken to the travellers who confirmed that they were onboard the vessel of the so-called Libyan coastguard.
Last update: 09:07 Sep 12, 2022
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