Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 24th of September 2022

Case name: 2022_09_24-ATL116

Situation: 58 people including 14 women in distress at the Atlantic Ocean, intercepted by the Moroccan Navy

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Atlantic Ocean

Summary of the Case:On Saturday the 24th of September 2022, around midday the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted by a relative to a group of 58 travelers, including 14 women, in distress in the Atlantic Ocean. The travelers had left the 22/09 or the 23/09 from a place between Guelmin and TanTan, Morooco in a grey boat. We were not able to establish a direct contact to the people on boat and the relative was not able to reach them anymore since the day before. We relayed the information we had to the Spanish search and rescue organization Salvamento Maritimo via E-Mail the afternoon of the 24th of September. We continued to stay in contact with the relative and also tried constantly to reach the travelers. We tried to learn more information through calling Salvamento Maritimo, the Spanish authorities of Guardia Civil and the Moroccan Navy. During a phone call with an officer of the Moroccan navy the 25th of September we were informed about the rescue of a boat with 57 travelers, including 9 women. Since the officer would not share more detailed information like place and time of departure and color of the boat with us, we were not able to clearly match those information with that case. Since a tropical storm was coming up and we knew about another three boats in the Atlantic Ocean, we decided to publish the following tweet (at 21:54 CEST, 25.09.): “As #TropicalStorm #Hermine hits the #CanaryIslands 4 boats to which we were alerted are in distress in the #Atlantic. ~200 people, incl. children, are on their way to the..” (https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1574125195568287750) .

The next night and following day we were still not able to confirm what happened to the 58 travelers, since the information we had were not exactly matching with known rescue operations. The information about the travelers came from relatives who could not tell us how precise they were. We decided to tweet again (at 14:06 CEST, 26.09.): “We still don't know the whereabouts of the 4 boats to which we were alerted on the #CanaryRoute. There is no contact to any of them. Competent authorities are only sharing vague information about their activities & are not confirming any rescue. Where are these people? “ (https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1574369778566942720). That same day in the evening we learned from the relative that he also believes that the boat was intercepted by the Maroccan navy and brought back to Morocco. We did not learn more detailed information but closed the case since several information were pointing towards that outcome.