Concern has been growing for the passengers of an overloaded boat spotted in the Mediterranean Sea. Last seen on January 15 by Seabird surveillance aircraft, the small vessel disappeared. "For days, we have been wondering, are they still alive?" wrote Sea-Watch on X (formerly Twitter).

The Alarm Phone assistance platform for migrants at sea had launched an earlier alert on January 13, without knowing if it was the same boat spotted two days later by the Seabird aircraft: "Yesterday morning, we lost contact to a boat in distress, carrying between 36 to 45 people travelling toward Lampedusa”, the platform announced on X.

"Authorities were alerted but do not give out any information and we have so far not heard about their arrival on the Italian island."

Starting at 3:30 am, the European coast guard agency Frontex and the Italian authorities searched for the boat and its 40 passengers for 17 hours but failed to locate it, according to the Italian journalist Sergio Scandura.

Two days later, Sea-Watch reported, "there [is] no news about the missing people who escaped from Libya in a wooden boat [...] Worried relatives are calling us and urgently need answers!"

Also read: Tunisian families await news of 40 migrants missing at sea

Sinking without trace

Contacted by InfoMigrants on January 16, Sea-Watch’s coordinator Maurice Stierl said that he "still had no sign" of the boat. 

NGOs regularly warn about the existence of these 'phantom' boats, which they lose contact with while they are at sea. Initially seen from surveillance aircraft or after a call to Alarm Phone, the migrants in the boats sometimes wait for several days before Italian or Maltese authorities arrive. The passengers are left to fend for themselves at sea, often at the mercy of bad weather.

"Sometimes these boats return to Tunisia or Libya or arrive in Europe without us knowing [...] When contact with the boats breaks down, it does not necessarily mean that the people inside have vanished," said Stierl.

Some boats, on the other hand, inflate the figures for "invisible shipwrecks". This is when boats depart, never call for help when they are in distress, and sink without trace.

'We desert the area'

Over the past year, the phenomenon of 'phantom' boats has increased because of the Piantedosi decree. Named after the Italian Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi, the law requires NGO ships to proceed without delay to the port of disembarkation assigned by the Italian authorities after an initial rescue.

"By leaving immediately after the rescue operation, we desert the area, with the European states having given up their responsibilities for rescues at sea. This is a great source of frustration for us, and above all, it makes us fear an increase of invisible shipwrecks," said Margot Bernard, of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) rescue ship Geo Barents.

Also read: Italy's refugee policy remains 'in trial and error' after almost a decade

By virtue of the decree, several boats were immobilized by Rome in 2023, some a number of times. "We are becoming less and less operational, and perpetually grappling with this dilemma: follow Rome’s orders or respect international maritime law which requires us to rescue any boat in distress?," said Soazic Dupuy, director of operations at the maritime-humanitarian organization SOS Méditerranée. "It's tiring and above all, incompatible with our mission."

'Difficult to be certain'

The shipwrecked migrants of the 'phantom' boats also remain invisible to authorities. The tragedies are not included in the victim reports of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), although "hundreds of human remains are regularly found on the Libyan coasts," according to the UN agency's website.

At the same time, however, NGOs are often contacted by the relatives of the missing in possible shipwrecks, and they therefore count them in their figures. As a result, there are large discrepancies between the reports of non-profit associations and those of the IOM: according to the Caminando Fronteras collective, at least 6,618 migrants died or disappeared on the migration routes to Spain in 2023. The IOM recorded more than 1,200 dead or missing over the same period: 914 on the Canary Islands route and 333 between Morocco or Algeria and Spain.

Also read: Canary Islands: Tragic deaths at sea reported as Spain confirms record high migration

"It is easier to draw conclusions when it comes to the Mediterranean route than the Atlantic route, which is longer and where boats are more difficult to spot," said Flavio di Giacomo, spokesperson at the IOM. "This path in the open ocean is very dangerous, so it is likely there are many shipwrecks no one hears about. More than 1,200 dead or missing: this is an estimate, a default figure. There are surely more deaths than our statistics reveal."

Many Senegalese families remain without news of their loved ones who left this summer, when the Canary Islands migration route saw an increase in activity. Around 300 migrants disappeared in July after boarding three boats from several coastal villages. "Every minute counts to find these people who disappeared in the Atlantic alive," said the coordinator of Caminando Fronteras Helena Maleno. They have still not been found until now.