THE families of refugees who went missing in the Mediterranean Sea on Christmas day are asking why European authorities have not begun looking for them.

The refugees – believed to number 13 – fled the shores of war-torn Libya from Sabratah in a fibreglass boat in the evening on December 24, a relative of one of the missing told the distress hotline activist network Alarm Phone on Boxing Day.

“Unfortunately the boat didn’t have a satellite phone,” an Alarm Phone activist told the Star today.

“The relatives gave us a private telephone number, but we weren’t able to speak to them.

“On December 25 Pilot Volunteer, an NGO, flew a search mission before we knew about this case and spotted what we think was the same boat in international waters off Libya because its description matches what we were told.

“Unfortunately we never received our own GPS position but Pilot Volunteer did.”

Both Pilot Volunteer and Alarm Phone alerted the Italian, Maltese and Libyan coastguard authorities that day. None has yet confirmed that a search and rescue operation has been launched.

“We gave the private telephone number to the coastguards because they have the technology to track phones,” the Alarm Phone activist told the Star.  

“We know that [the European Border and Coastguard Agency] Frontex sent out search flights but didn’t find the boat. But an aerial search is not enough. Once the authorities had the GPS position, they should have immediately launched a rescue operation and brought the people to safety.

“It’s very difficult to know what happened to this boat. We know that it didn't arrive in Europe. We know that it didn’t go back [to Libya].

“The weather has been really bad these past few days. We cannot know if they’re still alive and can be found or if they drowned because of the bad weather.”

Despite the lack of contact, Alarm Phone is still urging the authorities to search for the missing.

“It is very possible that the people are still alive,” Alarm Phone said.

“We’ve had situations where people were found alive after being at sea for two weeks. So the search should continue, but it seems that they have stopped.

“The people on board are from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and one person from Nigeria. We believe that there is at least one woman and a child on board too.”

The Open Arms, a refugee-rescue ship operated by the Spanish NGO of the same name, made it to international waters on December 23 as it headed towards the Libyan search-and-rescue zone in the central Mediterranean.  

It will be the only dedicated rescue vessel in the area since November.

At least 323 people have died and 417 gone missing in the central Mediterranean this year, according to the latest estimates by the International Organisation for Migration.