Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 10th of January 2016

Case name: 2016_01_10-AEG179
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 7 cases in the Aegean‬, 5 cases of distress at sea near Lesvos and Samos and 2 cases of travellers stranded on the Greek islands Farmakonisi and Samos
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Sunday the 10th of January 2016, the Alarm Phone was alerted to 7 cases in the Aegean Sea: 5 cases of distress at sea near Lesvos and Samos and 2 cases of travellers stranded on the Greek islands Farmakonisi and Samos. In all but one case, we could ensure that the travellers arrived safely. In one case, the travellers were rescued by the Turkish Coastguard and brought back to Turkey, in all other cases the travellers reached Greece. In the case of travellers stranded on Samos, we could not obtain a final confirmation of their rescue, but learned that the Greek authorities were carrying out rescue operations on Samos.

Cases 1-4: During the night from Saturday to Sunday and in the early morning hours on Sunday, we were alerted to four distress cases near Lesvos. In all cases there were between 40 and 45 passengers on board and they were having trouble with their engine and/or were in distress, because of the rough sea. The first boat, to which we were alerted just after midnight, was rescued by the Greek Coastguard. Three hours later, we were informed about a second boat on the way to Lesvos. On behalf of the travellers we called the Turkish Coast Guard, who rescued the boat and took the travellers back to Turkey. The third boat was rescued by the Greek Coast Guard around 5.30am. The fourth alert about a boat near Lesvos reached us at 6.49am. We could not establish direct contact with the travellers and had no detailed information about their situation. We informed the team of the NGO rescue ship Sea Watch, who were in vicinity of the boat's location. In the afternoon, the contact person confirmed to us that the travellers had arrived safely.

Case 5 and 6: At 4.43am, we received an alert on Facebook about a group of about 40 travellers stranded on Samos island. We informed the Greek Coast Guard, who promised to search and rescue the travellers. We did not get a final confirmation that the travellers had been picked up - neither from the contact person, nor the Coast Guard, however the latter assured us that they were carrying out a continuous rescue operation on Samos. We received another alert about stranded travellers on the military island Farmakonisi, however when we talked to them at 7.30am, they told us that they were not in need of help (anymore).

Case 7: At 8:30am, several contact persons informed us about a boat in distress close to the Turkish coast, on the way to Samos. 33 travellers were on the boat and they were in urgent danger of capsizing, we were told. We forwarded the case to the Turkish Coastguard, who went to look for the boat. After an unsuccessful two- hour search and rescue operation the Turkish Coast Guard called us to ask for updated coordinates. Our contact persons had lost contact with the boat at 10am and we also were not able to reach the travellers. The Turkish Coast Guard told us that they continued searching for the travellers with boats and helicopters until 2pm. At 4.40pm first the Turkish Coast Guard and then one of our contact persons, who had relatives on the boat told us that the travellers had arrived safely on Samos.