Around fifty migrants who were trying to reach England were rescued on Saturday morning off the coast of Berck (Pas-de-Calais), one of whom had fallen into the water, and searches were carried out to find two potentially missing persons, the maritime prefecture indicated in a press release.
A migrant on board this boat reported to the Gris-Nez regional operational surveillance and rescue centre (Cross) that a person had fallen into the water, reported the prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea (Premar) in a press release, four days after a deadly shipwreck in the Channel.
The emergency services managed to relocate and recover this “conscious” person. He was “put on land and taken care of by the mobile emergency and resuscitation structure (Smur)”, added the Premar.
Fifty-seven people on board the boat also asked for help, but around fifteen “refused assistance” and “continued their journey under appropriate supervision” from emergency services, the same source reported.
“Given the risks incurred by migrants in the event of coercive actions to force them to board the State’s rescue vehicles (…) the choice has been made to let them continue on their way,” Premar explained in its press release.
Once the rescue operation was over, rescued people informed the emergency services “that two people” had “fallen into the sea” in order to “come to the aid of the first person who fell into the water”.
Searches were then carried out by maritime, aeronautical and land means “to try to find other possible people at sea”, but “the two other people reported as potentially having fallen into the water could not be relocated and recovered”, Premar summarised.
The area having been “fully investigated”, the maritime prefect of the Channel and the North Sea decided to “interrupt the search”. An investigation was opened by the Boulogne-sur-Mer public prosecutor’s office.
On Tuesday, at least twelve migrants died trying to cross the Channel when the boat they were on broke up.
Since January 2024, at least 37 people have lost their lives in these crossings, making it the deadliest year since the start of the phenomenon of makeshift boats on the Channel.
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