03/06: 130 -150 travellers remain missing in the Atlantic

04.06.2024 / 13:14 / Atlantic Ocean

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 3rd of June 2024
Case name: 2024_06_03-ATL008
Situation: 130 -150 travellers remain missing after their departure from Mauretania in a wooden boat.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Atlantic Ocean

Summary of the Case: On the 3rd of June, a relative alerted the Alarm Phone shift team to a boat in distress in the Atlantic Ocean. The group of between 130 and 150 travellers had left Nouakchott, Mauretania, in a wooden boat four days earlier in an attempt to reach the Canaries. The relative had no information about the whereabouts of the group. The shift team alerted the Spanish, Senegalese and Mauretanian authorities, relaying all information about this case to them and throughout the next days, the shift teams tried to find information on the missing boat. After some days, Alarm Phone had to close the case without knowing what has happened to the travellers in the Atlantic. We sincerely hope that the missing people are still alive and that their relatives are not left in eternal uncertainty about the fate of their loved ones.

Tweets about this case: https://x.com/alarm_phone/status/1798312075539939790

Credibility:

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