Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 11th of January 2016

Case name: 2016_01_12-AEG181
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 1 distress case in the Aegean Sea
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Tuesday the 12th of January 2016, our Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to 1 emergency situation in the Aegean region. At 10.03pm we received a WhatsApp message from an activist friend who alerted us to a boat carrying 50 people, including small children and babies, on its way to the small uninhabited Greek island of Nera. We received information about this case also from other informants. We contacted the Greek coastguards who confirmed that they had been alerted to the situation already by the travellers and had asked them to call the international emergency number 112. We passed on the GPS coordinates that we had obtained and the coastguards said that they would pass on the details to one of their patrol vessels nearby. We sent these information to our contact persons. At 10.45pm the coastguards stated that they were still searching for the vessel. Afterwards we received several updates about the boat from different contact persons and obtained several different GPS positions.

At 11.29pm the Greek authorities stated that, due to the strong wind, the boat had drifted into Turkish waters. They had alerted the Turkish coastguards to the case. We then turned to the Turkish authorities who confirmed that they knew about the situation and had sent a rescue vessel out to find the travellers. They said that they would presumably reach the boat only in an hour’s time, due to the bad weather conditions. We were very concerned that the travellers would have to wait that long in these difficult circumstances for rescue, especially as a Greek coastguard vessel seemed to be nearby. We then informed the Greek UNHCR about the situation. At 00.36am the Turkish coastguards had still no new information and asked us to call them back later. At 1.28am we spoke to them again and they said that they were in the process of rescuing but that the operation was difficult and not yet concluded. They asked us to call them again in two hours’ time.

We then called the MRCC Ankara at 3.41am. To our great surprise they said that the Turkish coastguards had not gone out to sea due to the bad weather conditions (which was, however, false). They said we should call the coastguards again which we tried but were unable to reach. Instead, we called the Greek coastguards who said that they had offered support to the Turkish coastguards who, however, had refused their help! The Greek coastguards claimed that the Turkish coastguards had a rescue vessel near the boat in distress for 3 and a half hours already but had not yet launched a rescue operation. Following his account, the Turkish coastguards had stated that they would wait for a fishing vessel to assist in the rescue operation. He advised us to contact the Turkish coastguards and pressurise them to conduct the rescue operation.

At 4.17am we were able to speak to the Turkish coastguards again. They confirmed that they were trying to rescue the people but were currently waiting for a fishing vessel to assist them. He said that they would eventually rescue them and ended the conversation. At 4.53am we spoke to the Greek coastguards again. The officer said he had been informed that the rescue operation, with help of a fishing vessel, had been concluded, after 4 hours. As far as he knew, all were rescued and safe. The Turkish authorities then also confirmed the rescue of all travellers to us. We informed our contact persons about the successful rescue operation.