Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 14th of April 2019

Case name: 2019_04_14-WM383
Situation: 5 boats in distress in the Strait of Gibraltar, 4 intercepted to Morocco, one rescued to Spain
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Cases:

On Sunday, 14th of April, we were alerted to 5 boats in distress in the Strait of Gibraltar. 4 boats, two of them carrying 12 and two of them carrying 13 travellers, were eventually intercepted by the Moroccan Marine Royale. One boat from Achakkar, carrying 8 people, was eventually rescued to Spain.

At 9am CEST we were alerted to 4 boats in distress that had left together from Tangier towards Tarifa. We reached one person on one of the boats that informed us that two of the rubber boats carried 12 travellers, two boats had 13 passengers on board. We lost contact to the boat before we could get more information. At 3:08pm we were informed by a contact person that all of the 4 boats had been intercepted by the Moroccan Marine Royale. Later we managed to talk to one of the travellers again, who informed us that he was being deported to the south of Morocco.

At 9:30am CEST we were alerted to a boat in distress that had left from Achakkar the night before at 10pm in a rowing boat. We reached the travellers, that could see cargo ships in the distance, but they couldn’t identify them further. At 9 :55am we managed to receive their GPS position.
At 10 :30am we called the Spanish Rescue authority Salvamento Marítimo that informed us that the boat had been rescued by one of their patrol boats. At 10 :45am we managed to reach the travellers that confirmed their rescue to Spain.