The Diplomat
Salvamento Marítimo (Maritime Rescue), under the Ministry of Transport, yesterday justified its decision to delegate to the Moroccan authorities the rescue of 61 people sailing in an inflatable boat south of the island of Gran Canaria. At least two people died and 34 others were missing after the Moroccan patrol boat arrived in the area more than twelve hours late.
Salvamento Marítimo decided to delegate the rescue operations to Morocco despite the fact that, at the time of the incident, there was a Spanish rescue ship (Guardamar Calíope) just over an hour away from the dinghy. Besides, according to the audios published by Cadena SER about the conversations between the Salvamento Maritimo control center in Las Palmas and the pilot of the search plane, the skiff was in the Spanish search and rescue (SAR) zone.
The Moroccan patrol boat Al Mansour arrived in the area at 6.20 a.m. on Wednesday, despite the fact that the Spanish Salvamento Maritimo plane had communicated its position at 7.53 p.m. on Tuesday (more than twelve hours earlier). Upon arrival, the Moroccan vessel found only 24 survivors among the 61 people on board. Among the two deceased was a young girl. The Ombudsman has opened an ex officio inquiry into this operation, which has been strongly criticized by the NGOs Caminando Fronteras and Alarm Phone and by the political parties IU, Coalición Canaria and Nueva Canarias.
In a press release, Salvamento Marítimo assured yesterday that it had “acted fully in accordance with the international coordination rules and procedures established for maritime search and rescue”. It also specified that the incident had occurred in an area of shared search and rescue (SAR) responsibility between Spain and Morocco and that, “as the inflatable was located at a point closer to the African coast, 40 miles off Blaya compared to 88 miles away from Gran Canaria, Morocco expressly assumed the coordination and mobilized means to proceed with the rescue”.
Salvamento Marítimo also assured that the vessel, “as confirmed by the Sasemar 101 aircraft after its sighting”, was “afloat and there were no people in the water”, an information that “was also confirmed by the vessel Navios Azure, diverted to the area and which remained all night in the vicinity of the inflatable, following instructions from the MRCC (rescue coordination center) Rabat, which had already assumed the coordination”.
The Moroccan authorities themselves later assured Salvamento Maritimo that “there were no people in the water at the time of the arrival of their patrol boat in the area of the incident” and, since the MRCC Rabat assumed the coordination, “the coordination centers of Salvamento Maritimo had no information that neither the boat nor the migrants were in danger until the rescue operation was already underway,” the statement continued.
On the other hand, it continued, it was decided to withdraw from the area the Spanish patrol boat Guardamar Calíope, which was 40 miles from the inflatable boat, because it had to intervene in the rescue of 63 people, “several of whom needed attention due to the state they were in, so it proceeded to move to land”.
The statement also indicates that, once assumed the coordination by the Moroccan authorities of search and rescue (SAR), “in accordance with international regulations”, Salvamento Marítimo “was made available to them to collaborate in what was required, hence a helicopter was mobilized when requested”, a procedure “common between neighboring countries” and that “is carried out on numerous occasions both with Morocco, as with the United Kingdom or France”.
According to Salvamento Marítimo, “the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centers make the necessary technical decisions in each case independently following the established international procedures, and do not receive indications from external organizations”. The statement concludes by pointing out that, “since 2020 and until the end of May 2023, Salvamento Marítimo has rescued 6,243 people in the SAR overlap area and Morocco has rescued 3,748”.
