Rescue operations in the English Channel this weekend.
Some 240 migrants were rescued at sea and brought back to the French coast, between Monday and Tuesday, during several separate operations, as they tried to reach England aboard makeshift boats, announced the maritime prefecture.
During the night of Monday to Tuesday, a rescue boat at sea first rescued 23 people off Calais, said in a press release the prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea (Premar).
“At the very beginning of the morning”, a patrol boat from the French Navy then assisted 61 people, in difficulty off Leffrinckoucke (Pas-de-Calais), before recovering, in the same sector, the “34 castaways” another boat, continues the Premar.
Engaged at the end of the morning with another boat in difficulty off Calais, a maritime affairs patrolman discovered "all the occupants at sea, clinging to their sinking boat", says Premar.
Using a semi-rigid, the crew recovered 61 people, including “several in a state of hypothermia”.
These castaways were dropped off at the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer and taken care of by the emergency services.
A final operation finally made it possible to rescue 61 other people off Calais, brought back to Dunkirk.
The maritime route between France and England is one of the busiest in the world, "with more than 400 commercial ships passing through it per day and the weather conditions are often difficult", according to the maritime prefecture.
However, more and more exiles attempt the crossing.
More than 40,000 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel in small boats this year, a record.
On November 24, 2021, almost a year ago, 27 migrants died in the sinking of their boat off Calais, the worst tragedy recorded in the Channel.
World
Shipwreck of migrants in the Channel: Associations "dismayed" by the revelations
World
New agreement between France and the United Kingdom on illegal crossings of migrants in the Channel
Company
Normandy
UK
Hauts-de-France
Calais
England
Migrants
Immigration