No immediate identification was possible, according to the prosecution. A lifeless body, in a “very altered” state, was discovered on Sunday afternoon on a beach in Marck, near Calais, the Boulogne-sur-Mer public prosecutor’s office said on Thursday.
An investigation, entrusted to the Calais police station, has been opened and will aim “to determine as far as possible the causes of death” and “to identify this person” in order to establish whether it was a migrant and “if it can be linked to a shipwreck”, specified the prosecution.
At least 70 candidates for exile have died trying to cross the Channel to reach England since the start of the year, according to the Pas-de-Calais prefecture. This figure makes 2024 the costliest year in human lives since the appearance in 2018 of the phenomenon of Channel crossings on small boats, called “small boats”.
The discovery of this body in Marck brings to fourteen the number of bodies discovered at sea or on the coasts of northern France since October 30, according to an AFP count based on official sources. Another human body was found on Wednesday on a beach in the Somme, also in a very deteriorated state.
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. Migrant aid associations have identified around ten people missing after this shipwreck.
