Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 28th of July 2022

Case name: 2022_07_28-Eastern Med-945

Situation: 12 travellers pushed back from Rhodes to Turkey

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case:
In the early hours of the 28th of July, we were alerted by relatives to a group in distress directly in front of the coast of Rhodes. They had no GPS-location but they said the boat was very close to the Kalithia Springs Hotel on Rhodes. We did not manage to establish a direct contact to the people in distress, but we alerted the Hellenic Coast Guard (HCG) to the case at 4:47 CEST by email and shortly afterwards by phone call to RCC Piraeus.

Several people reached out to us during the night, being very worried about the boat that was according to them sinking in front of Rhodes. Several calls were made during the night to the HCG and the port authorities on Rhodes, where we were told repeatedly that “we are investigating”, but nothing more.

Finally, at 9:32 CEST, the Hellenic Coastguard in Pireaus told us by phone that "they did not rescue a boat in this position, but that the Turkish coastguard picked up a boat further north”. When we asked how they can know that this is the same boat we alerted them to, the officer on the phone got angry and hung up.

We later learned from a call to the Turkish Coast Guard, that on the 28th of July 2022 at 08.45 a.m. local time, that they had found a lifeboat off the coast of Muğla’s Marmaris district. The 12 people on the life-raft had reported to them that they were pushed back to Turkish territorial waters by Greek assets.