Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 24th of February 2024
Case name: 2024_02_24-Eastern Med - 097
Situation: 35 people in rubber boat from Libya rescued to Crete, Greece
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Eastern Med

Summary of the Case:
In the afternoon of February 24th, 2024, Alarm Phone received a call by a very stressed person on a boat, asking for help. After multiple attempts to get a position from the people, they also told us that they are between 30 and 35 people on board a black rubber boat. The position they shared showed them in the sea area between Libya, Egypt and Crete. We immediately alerted the coast guard commands in Italy, Malta, Egypt and Greece.
At 16:17 CET, the Egyptian Coast Guard called us and announced that they will launch a rescue operation. They later informed us that they sent out a radio broadcast to all ships in the area to look for the boat in distress. In the meantime, we lost contact with the people and could not reach them anymore. Despite looking actively for them, the Egyptian Coast Guard and private vessels instructed by them, could not find the boat in distress. During the night and the next day, the situation remained unchanged.
At 20:43 CET on February 25, we called the port authority of Heraklion in Crete. The officer on the phone informed us that around 30 people were rescued and brought to Crete. As a media article of the same day specified, a group of 35 people indeed arrived in the south of Crete. We tried to clarify if this matches with the group who called Alarm Phone the day before, but could not get final confirmation – however, we assumed it to be the same group. based on the information available to us.

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1761396072960692520

Media:
https://www.efsyn.gr/ellada/koinonia/423775_dekades-prosfyges-metanastes-se-nea-peristatika-me-akybernita-skafi-sto