MANCHE – Another dark night in the Channel. Eight migrants died in the sinking of their clandestine boat near Ambleteuse (Pas-de-Calais) on the night of Saturday to Sunday, September 15, bringing to more than 45 the number of candidates for exile to Great Britain who died in the Channel in 2024.
The overloaded boat capsized while still in the immediate vicinity of the shore, a source within the rescue service told AFP. Eight passengers died, said this source and a police source.
The prefect of Pas-de-Calais, Jacques Billant, went to the scene. During a statement to the press on the Ambleteuse sea wall on Sunday morning, he explained that the makeshift boat had been reported shortly before midnight. “The toll is terrible, since we deplore the deaths of eight people”he said. According to the maritime prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea, the authorities have been informed “by one of the passengers of the boat of the presence of people in an emergency situation, unconscious, on the beach”.
Eight dead, 10-month-old baby hypothermic
During his press briefing, Jacques Billant declared that “The boat set sail near the town of Wimereux with 59 people on board. It quickly ran into difficulty and ran aground near the Estran. The boat was clearly torn apart on the rocks.”
Although 53 people were treated, eight died. “They are apparently adults and according to the information I have, the castaways are from Eritrea, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt and Iran.”indicated the prefect of Pas-de-Calais.
Six other people, “including a 10-month-old baby with hypothermia”are in relative urgency, they have been sent to the hospitals of Boulogne-sur-Mer and Calais.
45 deaths in the Channel since January
The tragedy came less than two weeks after the worst shipwreck of the year in the region, which left twelve dead on September 3. It brings to 45 the number of deaths in such clandestine crossings since January, confirming that 2024 is by far the deadliest year since the phenomenon of makeshift boats crossing the Channel began in 2018.
Thanks to a favorable weather window, numerous crossing attempts have taken place in recent days. In the 24 hours between Friday and Saturday, “200 shipwrecked people were rescued”reported the maritime prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea (Prémar) on Saturday evening.
Over the whole day, “18 attempts at boat departures were monitored” by the Regional Operational Centre for Surveillance and Rescue at Cap Gris-Nez, added Prémar.
“It’s all the time, winter, day, night, summer”
In Ambleteuse, after the shipwreck during the night, a second departure took place around 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, Christine Leclair, a volunteer in a local association, reported to AFP. The departures, “It’s all the time, winter, day, night, summer(…) as soon as the sea is calm,” she stressed.
The tragedies have been happening one after the other since the beginning of the summer. In mid-July, six migrants died in one week in three separate shipwrecks: four on July 12, an Eritrean woman on the 17th and a man on the 19th.
These attempts to cross were made in particularly perilous conditions, on makeshift boats. During the shipwreck of September 3, “less than eight people had a life jacket provided by the smugglers”deplored Gérald Darmanin, the resigning Minister of the Interior, who went to Boulogne-sur-Mer (Pas-de-Calais).
He then called for the signing of a “migration treaty between Great Britain and the European Union” to try to put an end to illegal departures.
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