21/02: A group of 17 travellers missing in the Alboran Sea

22.02.2024 / 11:12 / Western Mediterranean

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 21 of February 2024
Case name: 2024_02_21-WM004
Situation: A group of 17 travellers has left Oran, Algeria, towards Spain and remains missing
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean

Summary of the Case: Shortly before midnight of the 21st of February, a relative informed the Alarmphone shift team about a group of 17 people, travelling in a white wooden boat in the Alboran sea. Among the travellers were a few women and children. The travellers had left Oran, Algeria, in the morning of the 19th of February and were travelling towards San José, Spain. Unfortunately, the Alarmphone shift team never managed to establish direct contact with the people on the boat but immediately relayed all relevant information to the Spanish search and rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo. For days, we regularly tried to call the people on the boat, sadly without success. As well did we contact several Spanish and Algerian authorities to find out about the fate of the people, but this as well has been without success. Until this day, we do not have any news of the group of 17 travellers. All our thoughts are with the relatives and friends of their missing loved ones.

Tweets about this case: https://x.com/alarm_phone/status/1760989566880608465?s=20

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