two new bodies discovered on beaches

Two new bodies were discovered on Tuesday on the beaches of Pas-de-Calais, the Boulogne prosecutor told AFP on Wednesday, adding that their link with recent shipwrecks of migrants was not a certainty but a “working hypothesis”. Found one on a beach in Sangatte and the other in Wissant, these bodies are “very degraded”having been visibly submerged for several days, said prosecutor Guirec Le Bras.

A police investigation was opened concerning the body found in Sangatte, and a gendarmerie investigation concerning the one discovered in Wissant, he added. This brings to eleven the number of bodies recovered in the Channel or on the coast between the end of October and the beginning of November, according to a count made by the AFP from official sources, in a context of recurring deadly shipwrecks during clandestine crossings in recent years. weeks.

At least 60 migrants have died since January 1

One of these shipwrecks, on October 23, officially left three dead, but also an uncertain number of missing. Migrant aid associations in Calais mention around ten people missing after this shipwreck, a figure that the Le Bras prosecutor cannot confirm due to lack of “exact accounting of the number of passengers” who were on board. At least 60 migrants have died in the Channel since January 1, not counting the latest bodies discovered and the missing.

This is the deadliest death toll since the start in 2018 of these clandestine crossings aboard makeshift boats nicknamed «small boats»inflatable boats that smugglers overload with passengers, often without life jackets.