Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 15th of December 2019

Case name: 2019_12_15-AEG637
Situation: 40 travelers in distress close to the Turkish coast, arrived back in Turkey, unclear who rescued them.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case:
On 15 December 2019 at 05:45am CET, the Alarm Phone received a call from a person in a camp on Lesvos who was in contact with a friend on a boat in distress. He reported his friend was in a group of 40 people and their engine was not working. He had already contacted Greek authorities. He passed us a phone number and at 05:53am we got through to the travelers. They said there were 15 women and 15 children among them, and the people were afraid and asked for help. They sent a GPS location which was in Turkish waters, close to the coast, near to Ayvalik. The call broke off and after several attempts to speak to them again, we informed the Turkish Coastguard at 06:11am. They said they would send out a rescue vessel. We still could not get through to the travelers. At 06:53am we called the Turkish Coastguard who were still searching and 07:02am they called us back and reported that they could not find the people at the indicated location and could not reach them by the phone. They assumed that the travelers were back on the land. At 07:12am we received an e-mail from the Turkish Coastguard saying they did not find them and were still searching. At 07:34am we finally got through to the travelers again and they reported to be back on the Turkish mainland with Turkish police, and they reported that several people got beaten by the police. We could not find out how exactly they had gotten back there. The call broke off again and from then on, we could not reach them anymore.