Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations 1st February 2024
Case name: 2024_02_01-CM024
Situation: 125 travellers in distress in the Central Med, intercepted by the so-called Libyan coastguard from within the Maltese SAR zone in an illegal pullback operation.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean

Summary of the case: On Thursday the 1st of February 2024 just before midnight, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to a group of 125 travellers, including around 20 children and 20 women, in distress in the Central Mediterranean Sea. The travellers told us that it was raining heavily and that water had entered their engine which was therefore no longer working, leaving them adrift. We managed to get their GPS position and immediately alerted the relevant search and rescue authorities, relaying all the information we had. We stayed in contact with the travellers and could hear that the situation onboard deteriorated as several people got sick and reported suffering from hypothermia and panic increased among all the travellers. We relayed their updated positions to the authorities as often as possible. Malta, as the competent search and rescue authority refused to give us any information about ongoing search and rescue efforts. We therefore additionally relayed the information we had to nearby merchant vessels, urging them to intervene in accordance with international maritime law. We later learned that the travellers had been pulled back by the so-called Libyan coastguard from inside the Maltese search and rescue zone and illegally returned to Libya.

Tweets about the case: https://x.com/alarm_phone/status/1753332884260229444?t=GldcxGLU_GC6SYQLQ_DS-Q&s=09