“Since yesterday afternoon, four bodies have been discovered at sea or on the coast in Calais or off the coast of Calais: two yesterday (Tuesday) at sea, one this morning (Wednesday) at the sea wall of Calais beach and a new one this morning at sea,” the public prosecutor of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Guirec Le Bras, told AFP this Wednesday.
An AFP correspondent saw the body on the beach in Calais, surrounded by police and soldiers. A migrant boat set sail from this same beach around 8 a.m. towards England, he noted.
In one week, eight bodies were found in this area.
Regular shipwrecks of migrants
The prosecutor specifies that the bodies discovered Tuesday and Wednesday are “altered and difficult to identify” but that the one discovered Wednesday morning at the sea wall of Calais beach carried “papers indicating that it is the body of a man of Syrian nationality.
“In addition to forensic investigations, the investigative actions will aim to determine whether these bodies can be linked to shipwrecks or maritime events with deaths that have occurred recently, by determining the event in question,” summarizes Le Bras.
On October 23, at least three migrants died in a shipwreck, for which the authorities cited possible missing victims. The prosecution reported a few days later of a persistent “question” due to a discrepancy between the number of people recovered and certain testimonies on the number of passengers on board.
Saturday morning, another body was found on the beach of Sangatte, very close to Calais, and three were found on the beach of Saint-Etienne-au-Mont, near Boulogne-sur-Mer, last Wednesday, day where a migrant also died in an attempted crossing.
“These tragedies will repeat themselves”
Not counting the two bodies discovered this Wednesday, the two recovered Tuesday and the one discovered Saturday, not yet formally identified as those of migrants, at least 60 candidates for exile have died trying to cross the Channel since the start of the year .
This already makes 2024 the costliest year in human lives since the appearance of the phenomenon of Channel crossings on small boats in 2018.
“The Channel brings back the bodies of people killed by political choices at the border. Our thoughts go out to the families who are looking for and mourning their loved ones,” the Auberge des Migrants association, which helps exiles on the coast, wrote on Wednesday on X. “The year is not over and as long as border policies do not change, these tragedies will repeat themselves tirelessly,” the association is alarmed.
Between November 1 and 5, 874 migrants crossed the Channel on small boats to reach the English coast, according to a count from the British Home Office.
