Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 26th of December 2017

Case name: 2017_12_25-AEG328
Situation: 40 travellers brought back to Turkey, arrested
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case:


On Monday, 25th of December, at 11:31pm, we received information about a boat in distress in Greek waters close to Mytilene-City, carrying 40 passengers. We couldn’t establish contact to the boat. At 11:37pm we called the Greek Coast Guard in Piraeus and informed them about the boat. We also passed the GPS position we had received by the contact person. At 11:43pm we sent an Email to the relevant authorities to document the alert. We still couldn’t reach the boat, but the contact person informed us at 0:07am that a Coast Guard unit had reached the boat. At 0:17am the Greek Coast Guard called the Alarm Phone and stated the boat would be in Turkish Waters and the Turkish Coast Guard would already be at the position. We clarified that the GPS position was indeed in Greek waters and the Greek Coast Guard agreed to conduct a SAR operation. At 0:35am they called again and stated the boat would be 5 miles east of the given position and would be rescued by the Turkish Coast Guard. In the following we could not establish contact neither to the boat nor to the Turkish Coast Guard. At 2:20am the contact person confirmed that the travellers had been brought to Turkey.