Alarmphone | 07.02.2018
Alarm Phone 8 Week Report, 11 December 2017 – 4 February 2018
+++ 1,925 Alarm Phone emergency cases +++ 2017, a year of radical transformations in the Mediterranean +++ Situation in the Central Mediterranean +++ About 8,000 arrivals in 2018, 321 deaths +++ Mobilisations against Repression continue +++ Developments in the Aegean and Western Mediterranean +++ Summaries of Alarm Phone distress cases
On the 30th of December 2017, the Alarm Phone was contacted by travellers in the Western Mediterranean Sea.[1] After paddling for more than 10 hours, they were rescued by the Spanish search and rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo (SM). While they were in distress at sea, our Alarm Phone shift team stayed in close contact with them, and forwarded information about their location to SM, until it was confirmed that they were on board of a rescue vessel. This was the last Alarm Phone case of 2017. Two days later, on the 1st of January 2018, we received our first case of the new year. A group of travellers had arrived on Samos Island in the Aegean, but they were not able to leave the beach on which they had landed. Although we were not able to establish direct contact with them, we alerted the Greek coastguard to the group, and could later confirm that they had safely arrived in the camp on the island.[2] On the same day, we were alerted to two other emergencies in the Aegean region – fortunately, both boats were rescued to Greece.[3] Between October 2014, when we launched the Alarm Phone project, and until the end of December 2017, we have thus worked on a total of 1,925 emergency cases in the Mediterranean Sea. In 2017, we were engaged in 155 distress cases, during a year that saw tremendous changes and transformations in the Mediterranean space.