Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 25th of September 2022

Case name: 2022_09_25-ATL118

Situation: 55 travelers in the Atlantic Ocean in distress, intercepted by the Moroccan Navy and brought back to Boujdour

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Atlantic Ocean

Summary of the Case:On Sunday the 25th of September 2022, in the evening the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted by a direct call from a group of 67 travelers, including 3 women and 2 children, in distress in the Atlantic Ocean. Since the connection was very unstable neither the number of people nor the position of the boat was understood clearly. Later that same evening we were able to establish direct contact to the travelers again and received an updated GPS position from them. We stayed in contact with the travelers and alerted the Spanish search and rescue organization Salvamento Maritimo. After two hours (21:12 CEST) Salvamento Maritimo told us via Phone that they instructed the merchant vessel “Monte Udama” to look for the boat. Even though the travelers told us they see a big white boat the information of Salvamento Maritimo remained that the “Monte Udama” tank was still 2 Nautical Miles away from the last position of the boat and that they were still not able to see the boat. After that last contact with the travelers (21.15 CEST) we were not able to reach them anymore. Since a tropical storm was coming up around that same time and the where-about of this boat remained unclear, we decided to include the boat in the following tweet (at 21:54 CEST, 25.09.): https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1574125195568287750: (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..)

In the very early morning of the 26th of September a relative called us to ask about his family members who are among those travelers. The relative was very sure that there were only 55 people on the boat, including 11 women and 3 children. Since the initial connection was quite bad, and the phone number of the travelers was the same, we probably misunderstood the number of travelers.

We tried to reach the travelers again during the night, but we did not succeed in doing so. The morning at 10:44 CEST, 26th of September we reached Salvamento Maritimo and learned that the boat was intercepted by the Moroccan Navy in the early morning hours. We relayed this information to the relative.