Quelle: Alarm Phone
Deadly denial of assistance in the Western Med; borders of Greece increasingly sealed off
As the rescue vessel had arrived at the spot prior to the accident, why did it not act immediately but waited for almost an hour until the boat had capsized?
Between Monday the 16th of November and Sunday the 22nd of November 2015 the Alarm Phone dealt with 44 cases of travellers in distress at the European borders. In one particular case in the Western Mediterranean Sea we witnessed a delayed rescue by the Spanish rescue organization Salvamento Maritimo, which led to the drowning of at least 24 travellers after a boat with 46 people on board had capsized off the coast of the Western Sahara. As the rescue vessel had arrived at the spot prior to the accident, why did it not act immediately but waited for almost an hour until the boat had capsized? Later on Salvamento Maritimo downplayed the number of travellers on board and the many missing travellers, claiming that they had rescued all but one of them – a statement that fundamentally contradicts the testimonies of survivors, family members and Spanish activists (http://watchthemed.net/index.php/reports/view/347).