Around 6 a.m. in Sangatte (Pas-de-Calais), a “probably oversized” number of migrants tried to board a “small boat”, a semi-rigid boat a few meters long, indicated the prefect from Pas-de-Calais, Jacques Billant, during a press briefing.
“A movement of panic”
The number of people trying to board suggests “that there were several groups present to board an already overloaded boat,” he lamented. What followed was “a chaotic movement, a movement of panic”, during which 48 people remained in the water without being able to board, he said.
The boat continued its route towards England, “leaving behind a very heavy toll”: three adult men, rescued by the French Navy helicopter a few dozen meters from the shore, were declared dead once brought back to shore. Four survivors were urgently transported to hospitals in Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer. A “provisional” assessment, added Jacques Billant.
Around 6:20 a.m., a team from the migrant aid association Utopia 56 came across several dozen soaked exiles on the road, along Blériot-Plage in Sangatte, said Célestin Pichaud, coordinator of the association. This team immediately alerts the firefighters and provides the survivors with socks and pants.
Resources at sea, as well as a large force on land – 56 police officers, 56 firefighters, civil protection personnel and the Audasse association – are mobilized. 41 people, taken care of at the Sangatte nautical base, must be interviewed by the border police as part of an investigation opened by the Boulogne-sur-Mer public prosecutor's office, indicated Jacques Billant.
