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

Case name: 2016_10_20-AEG269
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 Thursday the 20th of October 2016, our Alarm Phone shift team received a message from a contact person who informed us about a boat that had already reached Greek waters but was ‘pulled-back’ by the Turkish coastguards. They had been returned already. We reached out to the travellers but were at first not able to get through. On Friday the 21st of October, one of our Alarm Phone members followed up with one of the contact persons. According to him, the Turkish coastguards had clearly engaged in a pull-back operation. There were 45 people on the boat, including 10 women and 4 children. On the 9th of November we received the last position that the boat-people had forwarded to the contact person. While the position indicates that they were still in Turkish waters, the contact person informed us that the boat had moved on afterwards, so that it is unclear where they were exactly when the Turkish coastguards intercepted. While the precise location of the vessel in question cannot be verified, is clear is that these practices of pull-back are not uncommon and occur regularly in the Aegean Sea.