05/05: After days of travelling, 120 people were brought to Mauritania, two of them died on the way

06.05.2024 / 12:58 / Atlantic Ocean

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 05th of May 2024
Case name: 2024_05_05-ATL006
Situation: After a long journey, a group of around 120 travellers were intercepted and brought to Mauretania, two of them died on the journey.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Atlantic Ocean

Summary of the Case: On the 5th of May, a relative alerted the Alarm Phone shift team to a boat in distress in the Atlantic Ocean. It was a wooden boat with around 120 travellers on board, including ten women, three children and two babies, which had left on 1 May from M'bour, Senegal, in the direction of the Canary Islands. The shift team forwarded the alert to the relevant authorities, including the Spanish search and rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo, and repeatedly tried to contact the travellers to find out more about their current situation and position, without success. A few days later, the shift team learned that the Senegalese navy had intercepted a boat matching the number of people of the one the Alarm Phone had been alerted to. However, this rumour did not seem to be confirmed and in the following days the shift teams, together with relatives, tried to find out where the people were. After a few days, Alarm Phone learned from a relative that the boat had been intercepted to Mauretania. The relative reported from a conversation with one of the travellers that the group had arrived on a Spanish island five days after their departure and could not disembark there, but were told to continue their journey. Two hours after this incident, they were chased by three boats and finally taken to Mauritania. Two of the travellers died on the way, and when they arrived to Mauritania another traveller collapsed. The remaining travellers tried to help him but found themselves in a difficult situation as they were left alone by the authorities in a country that was foreign to them and had nowhere to go and had nothing with them. The Alarm Phone condemns the authorities' practice of interceptions of pushbacks by proxy and hopes that the survivors of this group will be well.

Tweets about this case: https://x.com/alarm_phone/status/1787200497058787647

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