Channel: 94 migrants rescued in less than 24 hours
Several separate rescue operations took place, detailed the Channel and North Sea Maritime Prefecture (Prémar) in a statement: 33 people were first rescued from a boat in the middle of the night, then 23 around 3 a.m. after an engine failure, and then 36 others, including one with minor injuries, in the morning.
On these three boats rescued off the coasts of the Nord and Pas-de-Calais departments, "the rest of the occupants" refused to be taken in and continued on their journey, the Prémar specified. During the day, "two people were also rescued," according to the same source. One hundred people had already been rescued between Sunday and Tuesday, also according to Prémar.
With the weather conducive to departures, an AFP photographer saw a dinghy carrying about thirty migrants approach the beach at Gravelines (Nord) at dawn on Tuesday and leave again with an additional fifty or so stowaways after perilous maneuvers. About fifteen others had to give up boarding the overloaded boat.
On Saturday, a migrant who "appears to be a man in his thirties of Somali nationality" died of cardiac arrest, according to Boulogne-sur-Mer deputy prosecutor Philippe Sabatier. The victim was suffering "from numerous injuries linked to a prolonged stay (...) in the fuel mixed with seawater that was on board the boat," the magistrate specified. Before this tragedy, 17 people had died since the beginning of the year trying to reach England by sea, according to the French Interior Ministry. In the seven days between July 23 and 29, 1,004 people arrived illegally in the United Kingdom aboard "small boats," these makeshift boats used by migrants to cross the Channel, according to official figures from the British authorities.
Since January 1, more than 24,000 migrants have arrived in the United Kingdom in this way, a record at this point in the year, again according to British authorities. On July 10, an agreement was reached between France and the United Kingdom on the migration issue: for each return to France of a clandestine migrant, London commits to accepting a migrant residing in France and proving ties to the country.
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