Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 17th of November 2015

Case name: 2015_11_17-WM69
Situation: Alarm Phone informed about capsized boat in Western Med, Spanish coastguard delayed rescue, 23 people missing, 1 person died
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Tuesday the 17th of November 2015 at 11.30pm the Alarm Phone was informed about a boat in distress with about 46 travellers on board, which had left from Laâyoune in the Western Sahara in the early morning of this day, heading towards the Canary Islands. Immediately afterwards, we called the Spanish coastguard in Las Palmas on the Canary Islands/Spain, who stated that they were already informed about this boat and were looking for it. The other day, at 9am, we talked again to the coastguard in Las Palmas and learned that the boat had capsized but that 22 travellers had been saved and brought to the island of Gran Canaria. However, the coastguard continued searching for the rest of the group. We informed our contact person, who repeated that there had been at least 46 people on board. Afterwards, we called the Spanish rescue coordination centre in Madrid who stated that there had only been about 28 people on the boat and 25 people had been rescued, but that they cannot give us more information as the search and rescue operation was still ongoing. Beyond that, we sent an e-mail to the rescue coordination centre and urged them to keep us informed, but never received an answer. In the afternoon, Spanish media started to report about the capsized boat. They stated that, according to family members of the travellers, 24 people went missing, while only one body had been found so far. However, the number of the people on board was still not clear. The activist Helena Maleno defended the version of the families, who claimed that there had been 46 persons on the boat (source 1).

According to the collective Caminando Fronteras, the Spanish rescue organization Salvamento Maritimo was initially alerted to this boat in distress on Tuesday the 17th of November at 10am and had located the vessel before 2pm (source 2). The boat was 22 miles away from the Moroccan coast and 128 miles off the coast of Gran Canaria, but Morocco did not start a search and rescue operation. According to AIS satellite data that the Alarm Phone received, the Spanish rescue vessel ‘Guardamar Talia’ left the port of Maspalomas on Gran Canaria on 2.15pm and reached the boat in distress at about 8pm. However, apparently, they did not start to rescue the travellers in distress immediately. According to an official statement (source 3), it was at 8.50pm, thus almost one hour after the rescue vessel had arrived on the spot, that the travellers’ boat capsized. Thus it is highly questionable, why Salvamento Maritimo did not interfere earlier and why so many travellers had to die although the coastguard was in close vicinity and must have been able to rescue all of them. Was the rescue vessel waiting for an intervention by the royal Moroccan marine? It would not be the first time, that Spanish authorities blocked travellers in order to deliver them to the Moroccan authorities.