• Nearly 140 migrants were fished out of the Strait of Pas-de-Calais overnight from Wednesday to Thursday.

  • Rescue operations of this type are almost daily between the English Channel and the North Sea.

  • The number of attempts to cross the English Channel has now approached 30,000 since the start of the year.

Nothing helps, attempts to cross the English Channel and the North Sea by migrants in search of the British El Dorado continue to grow.

The human and material resources of the authorities, the dismantling of smuggler networks, the shipwrecks have had no effect other than to, perhaps, prevent an even greater increase.

It is now almost daily that rescue operations are implemented to recover shipwrecked dozens.

The night from Wednesday to Thursday was a "little night" for the rescuers who had to rescue "only" 138 people in difficulty in the Strait of Pas-de-Calais.

Distributed evenly in three boats, the migrants had set off for Great Britain from different beaches in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais.

Except that, quickly, the canoes used, unsuitable for transporting so many people, were victims of damage.

This time again, a tragedy was narrowly avoided when three people who fell overboard were rescued by a boat from the National Society for Sea Rescue (SNSM).

Daily police operations

At the end of September, the number of attempted crossings has now approached 30,000 since the start of the year, which is already more than for the whole of 2021. And it is not a fault, for the law enforcement agencies, to increase operations to fight illegal immigration and smuggling networks.

Also during the night of Wednesday to Thursday, Calais police arrested three individuals of Albanian nationality aboard a van containing nautical equipment.

Same type of interventions in Wimereux on the 21st, in Sangatte on the 22nd, in Ambleteuse on the 23rd...



But the business is so lucrative for smugglers that a dismantled network is quickly replaced.

The last large-scale police operation only dates from last week, when seven suspected members of an Iraqi-Kurdish network were arrested.

To their credit, 80 crossings for a “turnover” of six million euros.

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