Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 22 February 2024
Case name: 2024_02_22 - Eastern Med - 92
Situation: 34 people reached Cyprus after days at sea, 3 remained missing and 1 child died
Status of WTM Investigation: closed
Place of Incident: Eastern Med

Summary of the Case:
On February 22, at 16:31 CET, the Alarm Phone hotline was contacted by relatives about a boat in distress near Cyprus. The boat carrying 34 people, including 4 children, departed from Syria on the 20th, and the families had lost contact since 1 day.

At 17:25, we sent an email to alert authorities, asked if there were information about the distress and demanded a search and rescue operation if not. We called the Coordination of coast guards in Cyprus to confirm the reception of the email, they didn’t have information about the distress case. We kept trying to reach the people onboard without success.

At 21:04, we released a Tweet to make the alert public. We replied to questions from JRCC Larnaca via email, and when we called them again at 22:07, they told us that they were trying to investigate.

The next morning, we called Pournana Refugee Camp on Cyprus to ask about arrivals, they told us that they would check. We got a list of names of people on the boat from relatives, that we also shared with JRCC Larnaca to be able to match the information with potential groups’ arrivals.

At 20:59 on the 23rd, we called the Cyprus Port and Marine Police who told us that none of the names matches with arrivals they know. The next day, we wrote to the Asylum Service in Cyprus as well as the Asylum registration coordination. On the phone, the Asylum registration coordination told us that they did not recognize the names.

On February 26, we sent again an email to all authorities, with an updated list of names and birth dates and all the information that we had. JRCC Larnaca later replied that they didn’t have any information.
In the evening, the Asylum registration center also replied on the phone that there was no information about the people from the boat.
At noon, we called the Turkish Coast Guards in Northern Cyprus: the officer told us that the police picked up 35 people on the island. We tried to reach the Turkish police in Northern Cyprus, without reaching anyone. We wrote also to the Criminal Investigation Department on the next day. On the phone, the Turkish Coast Guards in Northern Cyprus kept refusing to share more information and to confirm the names of the people.

On 4th of March we learned that the group was found & brought to the Pournara refugee camp on Cyprus. They were lost for days at sea. We wonder how this can happen in such a tightly controlled area. Reportedly 3 people are still missing and 1 child died during the journey.

We send strength and solidarity to the survivors and relatives of the ones who lost their lives.