06/10: Travellers in distress rescued to Samos, Greece

07.10.2016 / 23:53 / Aegean Sea

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 6th of October 2016

Case name: 2016_10_6-AEG267
Situation: Boat in distress rescued to Samos
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Thursday, the 6th of October 2016, at 5.16am a contact person sent us a position of a boat in distress. We checked the position and told him that the boat was in Greek waters. He told us that the Coastguard was already near the boat, but that he called because he was afraid of a push-back. At 6.13am the contact person sent us the number of a person on the boat. We reached out to the people in the boat, who told us that they had been rescued.
Around noon, we were contacted via Facebook about a distress case near Samos. However, it soon turned out that the boat in question had already been rescued and we realised that the boat was the same as the one we had dealt with in the morning. A press release of the Greek Coastguard later also confirmed the rescue of a boat with 65 persons in the early morning of the 6th. According to the press release, and in line with what our contact persons told us, the people in distress had been brought to Samos.

Credibility:

Border police patrols
While the exact location of patrols is of course constantly changing, this line indicates the approximate boundary routinely patrolled by border guards’ naval assets. In the open sea, it usually correspond to the outer extent of the contiguous zone, the area in which “State may exercise the control necessary to prevent infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws” (UNCLOS, art. 33). Data source: interviews with border police officials.
Coastal radars
Approximate radar beam range covered by coastal radars operating in the frame of national marine traffic monitoring systems. The actual beam depends from several different parameters (including the type of object to be detected). Data source: Finmeccanica.
Exclusive Economic Zone
Maritime area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea in which the coastal state exercises sovereign rights for the purposes of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, the seabed and its subsoil and the superjacent waters. Its breadth is 200 nautical miles from the straight baselines from which the territorial sea is measured (UNCLOS, Arts. 55, 56 and 57). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans
Frontex operations
Frontex has, in the past few years, carried out several sea operations at the maritime borders of the EU. The blue shapes indicate the approximate extend of these operations. Data source: Migreurop Altas.
Mobile phone coverage
Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network coverage. Data source: Collins Mobile Coverage.
Oil and gas platforms
Oil and gas platforms in the Mediterranean. Data source:
Search and Rescue Zone
An area of defined dimensions within which a given state is has the responsibility to co-ordinate Search and Rescue operations, i.e. the search for, and provision of aid to, persons, ships or other craft which are, or are feared to be, in distress or imminent danger. Data source: IMO availability of search and rescue (SAR) services - SAR.8/Circ.3, 17 June 2011.
Territorial Waters
A belt of sea (usually extending up to 12 nautical miles) upon which the sovereignty of a coastal State extends (UNCLOS, Art. 2). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans