A migrant died at sea near a beach in Pas-de-Calais, then three bodies discovered on the coast: the human toll continues to rise in the English Channel. Between Tuesday evening 29 and Wednesday 30 October, thanks to a weather window favourable to these dangerous crossings, many migrant boats set sail.
Early on Wednesday morning, “a land patrol of the national gendarmerie postponed the departure of an overloaded migrant boat between Berck and Merlimont”, according to the story from the maritime prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea (Premar). The regional rescue center (Cross) then dispatched a boat and a helicopter from the Navy.
The rescue team noted that “a significant number of people had not managed to reach the boat”, now in the Hardelot area, and found themselves in difficulty in the water, trying to return to the beach.
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They assist the migrants in their return to the beach, where they are taken care of by firefighters and police, but despite these interventions, one man is declared dead.
In total, 61 people were taken into care, according to firefighter commander Baptiste Gournay, reporting one person in “absolute emergency” and five in “relative emergency”, evacuated to the hospital in Boulogne-sur-Mer, in addition to the deceased man, aged 28 according to him.
The Boulogne-sur-Mer public prosecutor’s office indicated that he “could be Kuwaiti”.
A few hours later, three bodies of migrants were discovered at low tide on a nearby beach. The date of death of these men is not yet known.
“For the moment we are counting the deaths and then we will try to see how we can bring them together,” summarized the deputy prosecutor, Patrick Leleu.
“One death every five days”
On Wednesday morning, significant rescue resources were deployed to the seafront in Neufchâtel-Hardelot, where migrants were taken to building lobbies to warm up.
According to a member of the Utopia 56 association on site, several migrants were “severely hypothermic”.
A few hours after this tragedy and very close to where it happened, AFP journalists witnessed another attempted crossing. On a beach between Neufchâtel-Hardelot and Equihen, some 70 migrants, including several children, threw themselves into the water to join a boat that had come to pick them up, using the “taxi-boat” system.
The boat failed to start and about 40 migrants returned to the beach. The boat eventually started and sailed away, taking about 30 migrants with it.
AFP witnessed two other departures during the night from Sangatte.
In one day, “more than 130 people were rescued by the resources deployed by the Cross Gris-nez”, according to Premar.
“The figure that has been staring us in the face for the past few months is that one person dies every five days” in these attempted crossings, reacted one of the Utopia 56 coordinators on the coast, Célestin Pichaud. “The situation is more than dramatic. Rescue operations at sea and on land are overwhelmed by events.” He denounces the “disastrous desire to continue on the path of repression.”
In 2024, 32,000 exiles attempted to cross the Channel
Drownings and fatal crushes on overloaded boats have made 2024 the deadliest year since the phenomenon of Channel crossings on flimsy boats began in 2018.
On Sunday morning, another migrant died after attempting to leave from Tardinghen beach.
Last Wednesday, three migrants died in a shipwreck. The Boulogne-sur-Mer prosecutor’s office reported at the beginning of the week that there was a persistent “questioning” about this shipwreck, due to a discrepancy between the number of people rescued and certain testimonies describing the presence of more passengers on board the boat.
Since the beginning of the year, according to Premar, 32,000 people have attempted the crossing, of which more than 5,600 have been rescued and brought back to the French coast .
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