24/06: Travellers intercepted by the Moroccan Navy

25.06.2017 / 13:32 / Western Mediterranean

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 24th of June 2017

Case name: 2017_06_23-WM143
Situation: 10 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 Saturday the 24th of June, at 11.05am, the Alarm Phone was alerted by a contact person to a group of ten travellers, two women and eight men, who had left Tangier around ten hours earlier. We immediately called the Spanish Search and Rescue agency Salvamento Maritimo, and passed on the information that we had. They informed us that there had been many interceptions on this day, and they assumed that this boat had also been intercepted. However, in a second call to the contact person they clarified that they had just spoken to the people on the boat, and that they were still at sea. At 11.11am forwarded this information to Salvamento Maritimo. At 12.08am we called back Salvamento Maritimo, and they informed us that the travellers had been intercepted by the Moroccan Navy. At 1.45pm we managed to reach the travellers, who told us that one of the people amongst them had been brought to hospital in an ambulance, while the rest of them had been taken to the police station.
Credibility: UP DOWN 0
Layers »
  • 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

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