17/03: 23 travellers were intercepted in the Alboran Sea and brought back to Algeria

18.03.2024 / 11:36 / Western Mediterranean

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 17th of March 2024
Case name: 2024_03_17-WM007
Situation: 23 travellers departed from Oran, Algeria, and were intercepted by Algerian authorities
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean
Summary of the Case: In the very early morning of the 17th of March, the Alarmphone shift team was alerted by a relative to a group of 23 people, travelling in a white fibreglass boat in the Alboran Sea. Among the people were one women and several children. They have started from Oran, Algeria, and were heading towards Spain. The Alarmphone shift team tried to call the people on the boat who luckily had connection and could communicate with us. They reported that they were drifting, their engine was broken and that also the boat was broken. They asked for urgent rescue. We immediately relayed all the information we had to the Spanish search and rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo, who told us that MRCC Algiers is responsible for coordinating a rescue. We therefore called the Algerian authorities who did not want to give us any information and pretended not to know anything about the people during the whole day. In the evening we learn from the relative that the people had been picked up in the morning by the Algerian authorities and been brought back to Oran.

twitter: https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1769345341256556665 https://x.com/alarm_phone/status/1769346684008398926?s=20

Last update: 12:51 Aug 10, 2024

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