Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 14th of November 2017

Case name: 2017_11_14-AEG318
Situation: Alarm Phone in contact with a group stranded on Samos island
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Tuesday the 14th of November 2017 at 10.26pm, a contact person alerted the Alarm Phone to a group of 35 travellers who had stranded on the Greek island of Samos and provided us with their phone number. At 10.38pm, we wrote to the travellers and asked them if they were in need of help. At 10.43pm, we talked to them directly and were told that they were 20 adults and 15 children, including a pregnant woman, a 1 month old baby and a person with heart problems. They had crashed into the rocks of the island and some people had fallen into the water and were wet and injured. They forwarded an updated GPS position to us and at 10.45pm we immediately called the Greek coastguard in Piraeus and forwarded all information we had received so far. At 11pm, we wrote an email to the Greek coastguard and to the UNHCR in Greece as well. 20 minutes later, we talked again to the travellers and learned they had also informed the authorities by themselves. Afterwards, we tried to speak to the local police and to the port authorities on Samos as well as to the medical team of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) on the island, but did not reach them via phone. At 11.45pm, we received a voice-massage from the travellers, indicating that a small vessel had approached the coast and had pointed its lights on them, without talking or in any other way interacting with them. After several failed attempts, at 0.12am, we finally reached the fire brigade on the Greek island of Samos, and learned that they were already searching for the travellers since two hours, in order to forward their position to the port authorities. At 0.14am, the travellers told us that they had started to walk in the mountains, but that they were too much freezing in their wet clothes. At 0.22am, they provided us with an updated position, which we immediately forwarded to the island’s fire brigade. The firemen asked us to urge the travellers to go back to the shore, as they could not be found in the woody mountains. At 0.36am, we talked again to the travellers and tried to convince them to go back to the beach, but they were afraid that they might be picked up and brought back to Turkey. In another call with the travellers at 2.12am, they told us that the group had split up into two groups, with one having made a fire on a mountain and another being at the shore again. At 2.23am, the Samos fire brigade told us that they had stopped their search for the night. In another call with the Greek coastguard in Piraeus at 2.42am, they explained to us that they had seen the light of the group’s fire, but that it was too difficult to organize a rescue from that place during the night. They promised to re-start their rescue operation at 6.30am in the morning of the next day. At 5.23am, we received a new phone number of the travellers and an updated GPS position, which we forwarded to the Greek coastguard in Piraeus. At 5.44am, we talked to the Samos port police, who had just been informed about the case and had started working on it. At 6.05am, the travellers forwarded a new position to us, which we forwarded to the Samos port police immediately afterwards. At 6.36am, the travellers called us again, stating that they had forgotten to mention that the mother with her baby were still at the beach; an information that we also forwarded to the authorities. At 7.30am, our contact person forwarded the latest GPS position of the travellers to us and informed us that one group of 20 people was walking on a street, while 10 persons, including the baby, were still at the beach. At 8am, we talked again to the Samos port authority and forwarded the latest positions. We were told that both the port authorities and the police were aware that the group had split into two groups. In the following two hours, we did not receive any updates on the case, but in another call at 10.15am, the Samos port authority confirmed to us that the fire brigade had found the group with 21 travellers on the road. In another call with the fire brigade at 10.30am, they confirmed to us that they had found both groups, in total 35 people. At 12.51am, we talked to the solidarity group Samos Volunteers, who had only heard about a group of about 20 people arriving at Samos during the night, but they promised to double-check on the second part of the group. In another call with them at 5.35pm, they confirmed to us that all 35 persons, including the mother and her baby, had been rescued and brought to the registration processing centre on the island.