Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 12th of October 2017

Case name: 2017_10_12-AEG312
Situation: 40 travellers rescued by the Turkish coast guard.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Thursday the 12th of October 2017, at 5.17am, a contact person alerted the Alarm Phone shift team to a group of travellers in distress, forwarding us their position and phone number. We called the travellers, and they informed us that they were 40 travellers in the boat, amongst them 25 children. Their engine had stopped working, and the water was entering the boat. They also told us that they could see a vessel ahead of them, but that the vessel was not approaching to help them. Soon after this conversation they sent us a new position which didn’t make sense when compared to the first position. The new position we received showed the travellers in Greek waters, according to our map on watchthemed.net. At 5.37am we called the Greek coast guard, and forwarded this new position. The Greek coast guard informed us that the position was in Turkish waters, and that even though they had a rescue vessel close to the location, they were waiting for the Turkish coast guard to carry out the rescue operation. In our next call to the travellers at 5.45am, they told us that the vessel of the Turkish coast guard was approaching. At 6.17am the contact person confirmed that the travellers had been rescued and brought to Turkey.