13/01/2024 : 38 people stranded on Lesvos, found by MSF

14.01.2024 / 13:02 / Eastern Med

Watch the Med Alarm Phone Investigations - 13th of January 2024
Case name: 2024_01_13-Eastern Med - 014
Situation: 38 people stranded for Lesvos before being assisted of by MSF 

Status of WTM Investigation : Concluded 

Place of Incident
: Eastern Med

Summary of the Case:
In the morning of the 13th of January, the Alarm Phone was alerted by a group of 37 people, including 20 children, 10 men and 7 women, who had arrived on the island of Lesvos in Greece. We were informed that some of them were injured and in need of urgent medical assistance. We sent an email to inform Greek authorities, Frontex and NGOs on the island of the group’s situation and location, informing them that the people needed medical attention and wanted to claim asylum in Greece.

We later received an email from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) who confirmed they would send a team to look for the people. At around midday, MSF confirmed by email that they had found the group, which consisted of 38 people instead of 37, providing them with medical care.
Credibility: UP DOWN 0
Layers »
  • 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