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Rights · help · conditions
Migrating to Europe — tips & help for refugees
Information on your rights, where to find help, and — if you go by sea — the weather. If you go by sea, check conditions across the whole journey, not just at departure. This page can tell you about the weather, not whether a boat is safe.
This information cannot make the journey safe — it can only help you weigh the risks and find support.
Support near you
Organisations that help people on the move — legal help, medical care, food and shelter, and help if you are arrested. This works on land, wherever you are, and does not depend on any crossing.
If you are not in one of the places listed, enter your exact coordinates. Your location stays on your phone — it is not sent anywhere.
Step 2 — Where do you want to go?
This tool does not rank destinations and will not tell you which is easiest or best. The shortest route is often the deadliest, and no route here is safe. It shows you what each one actually involves, and what your rights are — you decide.
The land route
This tool cannot rate a land route. There is no forecast for a fence, a port, or a forest. What follows is what people and human rights monitors report happens there.
Weather does not make a land route safer. People are injured and killed on the fences, in the sea channel around the Ceuta breakwater, and crushed or suffocated in crowds and in vehicles.
Camps in the forest around Nador are raided, including at night. Shelters are destroyed, phones and money are taken, and people are arrested and bussed to the interior of the country.
Moroccan law 02-03 forbids arresting pregnant women and children, and people holding residence cards. It happens anyway. Knowing the rule is still worth something if you can reach a lawyer.
If you are arrested, detained, or at risk of being expelled or pushed back, call the UNHCR hotline: +212 661 29 67 73 (every day, 9:00–22:00).
Alarm Phone is a sea hotline. It cannot help on a land route. For land, contact AMDH or the organisations listed in Step 1.
If you reach Ceuta or Melilla, there is an asylum office at the border crossing itself. Say clearly that you want to apply for asylum, and repeat it if you are not listened to.
Document what happens if you can — dates, places, photos. AMDH and Watch The Med collect testimonies, and keep them anonymous.
Step 3 — The sea crossing
Boat & equipment (optional)
These never improve the rating — they can only flag extra risks. Leave anything blank if you don't know it.
A reliable forecast is only possible from today up to about 16 days ahead. Travel time is estimated at a slow ~10 km/h (an overloaded boat), and the route is assumed to be a straight line.
Coming days outlook
Compare the weather risk across the coming days on the selected route, at the chosen departure time. The least-dangerous day by weather is still life-threatening.
Each segment is coloured by the risk level for that part of the route, at the time the boat is expected to be there. Even a lower-coloured segment stays life-threatening — the boat itself is the biggest risk.
Tell someone before you go
If nobody knows you left, nobody can raise the alarm when you stop answering. This writes a message on your phone that you send yourself — this page sends nothing anywhere.
Before you go
Tell someone you trust where you are going and when, and agree a time to check in.
Write the emergency numbers on paper, not only in your phone. Phones are taken.
Carry any document you have, and leave a copy with someone you trust.
Do not carry anything that names the people who helped you.
Take water and warm clothes. Nights in the forest and on the hills are cold.
Charge your phone whenever you can, and keep it switched off to save battery.
On desert stretches, carry far more water than you think — at least several litres per person, and more in a shared vehicle. Dehydration kills faster than anything else out there.
Never travel alone. Move in a group and stay together — people who fall behind are the ones who disappear.
If you are stranded, stay with the vehicle or in one place rather than walking into open desert. You are far easier to find if you stay put.
If you are pushed back or left in the desert
Being forced back from a fence, or dropped far away, does not end your right to ask for protection. You can try again to reach help.
Head for the nearest town or road, not deeper into open country. Call for help from the first place you reach.
If you are near the Algeria–Niger border and in danger in the desert, Alarm Phone Sahara can be reached (satellite phone, from outside Niger too):
Beatings, having your phone or money taken, and being dumped far from any town are common. Keep some emergency numbers written on paper or memorised in case your phone is gone.
Before you leave
Wear a life jacket — for everyone on board, including children.
Take enough fuel, drinking water and food.
Take a (satellite) phone. An ordinary phone often has no signal at sea.
Make sure someone on land knows when and where you leave, and where you are heading.
Learn how to share your GPS location over WhatsApp.
In distress at sea
First call the coastguard or the emergency number 112 (in EU waters).
Alarm Phone is not a rescue service and has no boats. It is an alarm number that alerts the coastguard and follows the situation. Always call the coastguard first.
Information & help
Practical information. None of this makes the crossing safe — it can only help reduce some of the risk and let you know your options.
Safety & survival at sea
None of this makes the crossing safe — the boat, overcrowding and the lack of rescue stay the biggest dangers. It can only lower some of the risk.
Wear a real life jacket
Put it on before you leave — everyone, including children. Some life jackets that are sold do not float. Check yours really keeps your head above water.
Don't overload, and stay low
Overloading is the main cause of capsizing. Sit low and spread out evenly. Don't stand or move suddenly — a small shift can flip the boat.
Keep fuel off your skin
Petrol mixed with seawater causes severe chemical burns, especially in the bottom of the boat. Keep fuel containers closed and away from where people sit.
Stay dry and warm
Even in summer, hours wet at night cause hypothermia. Stay out of the water, keep as dry as you can, and huddle together. An emergency foil blanket helps hold in heat.
Water and sun
Carry enough drinking water and cover your head and skin. Dehydration and sunstroke build up over the long hours at sea, and get worse with any delay.
Be able to call for help
A satellite phone works at sea where an ordinary phone has no signal. Learn how to share your GPS location. Call the coastguard first, then Alarm Phone.
Ask to contact AMDH or a lawyer. Note the place, the time, and any names or numbers you can see.
If you hold a residence card, or are a child or pregnant, say so. Moroccan law 02-03 forbids arresting you — it happens anyway, but it is worth stating.
Write down the date, the place, what happened, and who was involved.
Photos and video help — only if taking them is safe for you.
AMDH Nador and AMDH Oujda document abuses and can act on them. Their numbers are in Step 1.
Watch The Med collects testimonies and keeps them anonymous.
Report deaths and disappearances, so that families can search.
Your GPS coordinates are the single most useful thing rescuers need.
On a Thuraya satellite phone: MENU → GPS MANAGER → CURRENT POSITION.
On a smartphone with signal: open a maps app to read your latitude and longitude, or in WhatsApp tap Attach → Location → Share live location.
Send it to a trusted contact and to Alarm Phone. If data fails, send the coordinates by SMS.
Send it to someone you trust. If data fails, send the coordinates by SMS.
Before you leave, tell someone on land your departure point, destination and time, so they can raise the alarm if you lose contact.
Keep the phone in airplane mode or switched off, and turn it on only briefly to call or send your position.
Lower the screen brightness, close apps, turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Keep it warm and dry — cold and water drain and kill batteries. Use a sealed plastic bag.
Keep it warm — cold drains and kills batteries. Nights in the forest and hills are cold.
Keep one phone aside, switched off, only for emergencies.
Bring a charged power bank if you can.
Protecting yourself
Some people prey on migrants — for money, for labour, or worse. Women and children are targeted most. These are warning signs, and none of it is your fault if it happens.
Be very careful of a "safe house" or free lodging offered by a stranger, even someone of your own nationality. Some are traps used to hold people for ransom or force them into work or sex.
If someone takes your phone, papers, or money to "hold" for you, or says you now owe a debt you must work off, that is a form of trafficking — not a normal arrangement.
Nobody has the right to force you to work, to have sex, to beg, or to commit crimes — whatever they say you owe them. This is against the law and you are the victim, not the criminal.
Try not to travel or stay entirely alone, and let someone you trust know where you are. Isolation is what makes exploitation possible.
If you are being held, forced, or threatened, the organisations in this tool — and UNHCR — can help, and helping a trafficking victim is not the same as smuggling. Reaching out does not put you in the wrong.
This is about protecting you from people who exploit migrants. It is not advice about arranging any crossing.
Assume your phone can be taken or searched at any arrest or checkpoint. Keep the most important emergency numbers written on paper or memorised as well.
Think about what is on your phone. Photos, messages or contacts that name the people who helped you can put them — and you — at risk. Consider removing them before a risky stretch.
Set a screen lock, so a lost or taken phone does not open straight into your messages.
Keep one number for someone you trust who will always answer, and make sure they know your plan.
Save your own GPS location and know how to send it quickly by SMS as well as WhatsApp — data does not always work.
The risks on every route are far higher for pregnant women, babies and young children — from cold, heat, dehydration, exhaustion and crushing in an overcrowded boat.
Emergency and maternity care should not depend on your papers. Caritas, the Délégation des Migrations, AMPF and MS2 can help, and can go with you so you are not alone at a health centre.
If you are detained, say clearly that you are pregnant or travelling with a child — under Moroccan law this should protect you from arrest, even though it does not always.
Register a child's birth if you can — organisations like the regional human-rights commissions (CRDH) and Caritas can help. It matters later for the child's rights.
Unaccompanied children have special protection under the law. Bayti (Casablanca), the Fondation Orient-Occident and UNHCR work specifically with children on their own.
