Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 29th of November 2018
Case name: 2018_11_29-AEG464
Situation: 44 travellers, including many children and pregnant women, landed on Samos
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Thursday the 29th of November at 4am CET the Alarmphone shift team was alerted to a boat carrying 44 people (among them 19 children and some pregnant women) heading towards the Greek island of Samos. Shortly afterwards the travellers landed on Samos and because of their difficulties orienting themselves we had to alert the local authorities. As we were alerted to this case by many different sources, it took some time to understand that we were dealing with one group of travellers, and it was not until the next day that we managed to clarify that we were dealing just one group (which had split) of people. All were taken to the hotspot in Samos.
At 4am we were alerted to a group of 27 people in distress (including 19 children and 5 pregnant women) who had left Turkey in the direction of Samos. When we made contact with the boat, we were told that they had a problem with their motor. From the updated GPS position we received at 4:08am, we saw that the boat was progressing. At 4:54am we received information that a group of travellers had arrived on Samos, and further information at 4:59am of a boat which had arrived on Samos with 44 people and 5 pregnant women, who were now stuck in the forest. Besides contacting the local police station we tried to make contact with the fire brigade and with Medecins sans Frontieres regarding the group in the forest. At 7:26am we received an updated GPS coordinate from the travellers on the boat which showed them to be in a forest, and our contact person confirmed that this person from the boat was part of the group of 44 travellers in the forest who we had been alerted to. It was now clear that these two cases were actually the same group. Over the next couple of hours we remained in contact with the police who were searching for the travellers. At 9:53am the port police told us that they had rescued 44 people and at 9:54am the contact person confirmed that the group had been rescued by the police. Later the police verified two phone numbers of individuals who had been rescued, which confirmed that two of our cases were actually the same. They were taken to the refugee camp.