Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 14th of March 2021
Case name: 2021_03_14-AEG753
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to one boat pushed back to Turkey along with many others. According to Turkish coast guard all travellers were intercepted and brought back to Turkey
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case:
On Sunday the 14th of March 2021 at 13.40 CEST the Alarm Phone shift team was called by a relative and alerted to a group of 22 travellers, including several women, who had been transferred to a life raft by the Hellenic coast guard and pushed back and abandoned in Turkish waters. According to the relative all of the travellers’ phones had been confiscated, apart from one with which they had made their call for help. We managed to reach the travellers, and they sent us their position along with photos of their situation. At 14.19 CEST we called the Turkish coast guard and passed on the information we had. The officer told us that they had already been informed by the Hellenic coast guard that they had pushed back around five rubber boats who were now adrift close to the position we forwarded them. They confirmed that their rescue vessels were already on their way and should reach the travellers soon. At 14.54 CEST we called back the Turkish coast guards. They informed us that they had rescued the group of travellers we had alerted them to. They further said that there were around seven to eight life rafts adrift with around 100 people in total. Rescue was still ongoing as it would take them a while to rescue this many people, but they told us that according to their information no travellers were missing at sea.