Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 20th of June 2016

Case name: 2016_06_20-WM101
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea
Summary of the Cases: On Monday, the 20th of June 2016, the Alarm Phone was alerted to one case in the Western Mediterranean Sea. 13 travellers had left near Cap Spartel, close to Tanger, Morocco on a rubber boat equipped only with paddles and no engine. They had left in two boats, but as one boat had deflated right after the start, the travellers continued their journey in one boat. We were first informed about the case at 4.30am by a contact person, who had a family member on the boat. However, he could only provide us with little information. At 5.17am we managed to talk to the travellers directly. They were extremely nervous in the small, overcrowded boat. They told us that they had left from "Polo 14" at 4pm. We immediately informed the Spanish search and rescue agency Salvamento Maritimo (S.M.) about the case. They said that they were already searching for the boat. We could identify the boat, as we and S.M. had the same contact number of one of the travellers. The S.M. officer was surprised about the number of people on the boat, as usually no more than 7 persons travel on rubber paddle-boats. They also had not heard about the place of departure. We researched about 'Polo 14' and called back S.M. at 5:55am to tell them that Polo 14 was located near Cap Spartel. At 6.15am we reached out to the travellers again. We told them that help was underway and that they should stay calm and try to attract attention. They explained that they had seen a fisher boat pass by thirty minutes earlier. At 9am, we called back S.M. who announced that they had rescued a dinghy some minutes earlier, but they could not say whether this was the boat we had been in touch with. At 9.57 they could give us more precise information: they had rescued 14 persons with the help of a helicopter west of Tanger. At 10.10 S.M. twittered: "Salvamar Gadir rescata 14 hombres(uno con síntomas leves de hipotermia), de patera localizada en #Estrecho. Los está trasladando a #Barbate" and a news report talked about the rescue of 13 men on their way to Cadiz. We tried to reach out to th eboatpeople again but did not reach them. Our initial contact person could not provide us with any new information, as he had also lost contact with the boat. At 11.55 we spoke with S.M. again and they confirmed that the boat rescued was very likely the one we had been in touch with. Until the evening we tried to reach the travellers again, but without success.