Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 19th of November 2016

Case name: 2016_11_19-AEG272
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 1 emergency situation in the Aegean Sea
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Saturday the 19th of November 2016, at 00.43am, our Alarm Phone shift team was informed by a contact person about a vessel that was moving toward the Greek island of Lesvos. We received two phone numbers of the travellers which, however, could not be reached. We also informed members of ERCI who run a watch-post on Lesvos about the situation. One of our contact persons had been informed by the relatives of the travellers and at 1.31am she informed us that the travellers had been found by a Frontex vessel. We then sent links to the w2eu Welcome to Greece guide in English and Arabic (http://w2eu.info/greece.en.html) to the contact person and asked her to pass them on to the travellers. At 2.35am ERCI informed us that they knew about a boat which, highly likely, was the boat in question. ERCI had been in contact with the travellers during the rescue operation. There were 22-23 people on the boat, one person had fallen into the water. They had been rescued and brought to the Greek island.