01/12 – 27 travelers in distress, started from Jbeniana, Tunisia, returned by themselves

02.12.2020 / 18:42 / Central Mediterranean Sea

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 1st of December 2020

Case name: 2020_12_01-CM334

Situation: 27 travelers (ten women, four children) started from Jbeniana, Tunisia. Contact to a relative broke off. People returned to Tunisia after one night on the water.

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On the 1st of December 2020 at 13:30h CET, the Alarm Phone was called by a person whose sister was on a boat in distress. There were 27 travellers, among them ten women and four children. They had departed the night before at 22:00h CET Jbeniana (between Sfax and Madhia) in Tunisia in a green wooden boat. He had received a distress call at 11:00h CET in the morning, then the contact had broken off. He did not have a GPS location of the boat. Reportedly, the engine had stopped working and the people could not see any land and were afraid of sinking. He passed us the phone number of his sister. Our shift team repeatedly tried and reach the travellers, but without success. At 14:39h CET, we informed the Italian, Maltese and Tunisian authorities via e-mail and passed all the information we had. At 14:54h CET, we called the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Rome and passed them the information on the phone. At 15:44h CET, our shift team got through to the travellers and learned that they had returned by themselves and were back in Tunisia.
Credibility: UP DOWN 0
Layers »
  • Border police patrols
     
    While the exact location of patrols is of course constantly changing, this line indicates the approximate boundary routinely patrolled by border guards’ naval assets. In the open sea, it usually correspond to the outer extent of the contiguous zone, the area in which “State may exercise the control necessary to prevent infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws” (UNCLOS, art. 33). Data source: interviews with border police officials.
  • Coastal radars
     
    Approximate radar beam range covered by coastal radars operating in the frame of national marine traffic monitoring systems. The actual beam depends from several different parameters (including the type of object to be detected). Data source: Finmeccanica.
  • Exclusive Economic Zone
     
    Maritime area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea in which the coastal state exercises sovereign rights for the purposes of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, the seabed and its subsoil and the superjacent waters. Its breadth is 200 nautical miles from the straight baselines from which the territorial sea is measured (UNCLOS, Arts. 55, 56 and 57). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans
  • Frontex operations
     
    Frontex has, in the past few years, carried out several sea operations at the maritime borders of the EU. The blue shapes indicate the approximate extend of these operations. Data source: Migreurop Altas.
  • Mobile phone coverage
     
    Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network coverage. Data source: Collins Mobile Coverage.
  • Oil and gas platforms
     
    Oil and gas platforms in the Mediterranean. Data source:
  • Search and Rescue Zone
     
    An area of defined dimensions within which a given state is has the responsibility to co-ordinate Search and Rescue operations, i.e. the search for, and provision of aid to, persons, ships or other craft which are, or are feared to be, in distress or imminent danger. Data source: IMO availability of search and rescue (SAR) services - SAR.8/Circ.3, 17 June 2011.
  • Territorial Waters
     
    A belt of sea (usually extending up to 12 nautical miles) upon which the sovereignty of a coastal State extends (UNCLOS, Art. 2). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans

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