Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 4th of July 2017

Case name: 2017_07_04-AEG291
Situation: 60 people rescued by Greek coastguard south of Lesvos
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Tuesday the 4th of July 2017 at 4am, a contact person alerted the Alarm Phone to a boat in distress south of the Greek island of Lesvos and provided us with their GPS coordinates. There were at least 60 people on board of the boat, including women and children. They had already reached Greek territorial waters, when the boat’s engine stopped working. We tried to call the travellers immediately, but were not able to reach them. Also the contact person was unable to reach the travellers anymore, thus we decided to call the Greek coastguard at 4.40am. We were told that the coastguard had already rescued a boat with about 60 travellers on board in this region. The phone number of the boat rescued was the same than the one we had received from our contact person. At 4.50am, we forwarded this information to him and agreed to wait for confirmation directly from the travellers. Finally, at 6am, the contact person confirmed to us that the Greek coastguard had rescued the travellers. He also forwarded two pictures to us, showing the travellers on board of the Greek coastguard vessel. They were all fine.