23/06: Travellers intercepted by the Moroccan Navy

24.06.2017 / 13:29 / Western Mediterranean

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 23rd of June 2017

Case name: 2017_06_23-WM142
Situation: 7 travellers on their way from Tangier intercepted by the Moroccan Navy
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean

Summary of the Cases: On Friday the 23rd of June, at 12.41am, the Alarm Phone received a direct call from a boat with seven travellers. They informed us that they left from Tangier more than ten hours earlier. Two of the people amongst them were sick and they were all very tired from rowing. At 12.50am we called the Spanish Search and Rescue agency Salvamento Maritimo, and passed on the information we had about the boat. At 1.05 we spoke to the travellers again, and they informed us that they had been called by Salvamento Maritimo, and also that they did not have a lot of battery left on their phone. After this call it was no longer possible for us to reach them. At 1.40pm we called Salvamento Maritimo again, and they informed us that the Moroccan Navy rescued a boat with ten people an hour earlier, and they assumed that it was the same case. We insisted that we spoke to the travellers less than an hour ago, and that they were seven on the boat, not ten. Friends from Ceuta also called to stress the urgency, but we were not able to obtain any information from Salvamento Maritimo. Only the next morning at 8.15am did we manage to reach the travellers again, and they could inform us that they had been intercepted by the Moroccan Navy and brought to the police station, from where some of them had been deported towards the south of Morocco.

Last update: 12:50 Jul 20, 2017

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