04/02: 54 travellers returned to Tunisia, then deported to Algerian desert

05.02.2024 / 16:36 / Central Mediterranean

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations 4th February 2024
Case name: 2024_02_04-CM027
Situation: 54 travellers in distress in the Central Med, picked up by the Tunisian coastguard, then abandoned in the Algerian desert.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean

Summary of the case: On Sunday the 4th of February 2024, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted by a relative to a group of 54 travellers, including three women, in distress in the Central Mediterranean Sea. The travellers had left from Sfax in the evening of the 2nd of February on a brown iron boat. According to the relative their engine had broken and they needed rescue. The relative forwarded us their GPS position. We immediately relayed all the information we had to the Tunisian coastguard. Later, we learned from the relative that the travellers had been picked up by the Tunisian coastguard and then deported to the Algerian desert where they were abandoned. We never managed to reach the travellers. We highly condemn the cruel practices in this case of the Tunisian coastguard.

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