Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 24th of November 2016

Case name: 2016_11_24-AEG273
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 8 people stranded on Greek island of Samos
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Thursday the 24th of November 2016 at around 6.45pm, a contact person informed the Alarm Phone about eight travellers who had stranded on the Greek island of Samos and forwarded us a phone number. He had lost contact to them and asked for help. In the following 30 minutes, we tried to reach the travellers via phone and SMS, but without success. Yet at 7.20pm we reached them and learned that they were seven men and one woman. They were walking in a forest but had lost orientation, even not knowing on which island they had arrived. We explained to them how to find out their position and asked them to walk on in order to find a road or even to reach a village. Afterwards, both the contact person and we lost the connection to them again. We agreed with the contact person to keep each other updated in case that any of us receives further information. Until 1am in the night we tried to reach the travellers via phone, but without success. On the next day, the travellers were still not directly reachable, yet at about 3.30pm we received confirmation from the contact person that they had been picked up by the police on Samos island and had been brought to the refugee registration centre.