Channel crossing: 84 migrants rescued off the French coast
A French gendarme patrolling Ambleteuse beach and monitoring the area with binoculars, January 18, 2019. (illustrative image) AP - Michel Spingler
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The Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea indicates in a press release that four boats, with 84 migrants on board wishing to reach the United Kingdom, were rescued on Saturday April 10 off the coast.
Some of them were in trouble.
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The French Navy, the Maritime Gendarmerie and the National Society for Rescue at Sea (SNSM) had to intervene at sea four times this Saturday to rescue boats of migrants
trying to reach the British coast
.
Very early in the night, a naval patrol boat, the “Flamant”, first recovered 11 migrants off the coast of Touquet.
They were dropped off at the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer.
Off the coast of the same town, a tug named "Abeille Languedoc" rescued 24 castaways, including five children.
Off Sangatte, the crew of a gendarmerie star, which bears the name "Scarpe", noticed a boat in difficulty and recovered 30 migrants, including a woman and a baby.
And the SNSM's “President Jacques Huret” canoe had to intervene off Ambleteuse to rescue a boat in distress with 19 migrants on board, including two women and two children.
► To read also: Crossing the Channel: the difficult surveillance of the coasts
"
They are all safe and sound thanks to the efficiency and responsiveness of the actors acting daily for the action of the State at sea and the safeguard of human life
", indicates the maritime prefecture of the Channel and the Sea of North.
Since the end of 2018, illegal crossings of the Channel by migrants have increased, despite warnings and all the dangers linked to the density of traffic, bad weather, strong currents and water temperature.
The Channel is "
one of the busiest areas in the world and where the weather conditions are often difficult (120 days of wind greater than or equal to force 7 on annual average)
", recalls the prefecture.
In 2020, it counted more than 9,500 crossings or attempted crossings, four times more than in 2019. Six people died and three disappeared in 2020.
[#Scue] of 84 migrants between Le Touquet (62) and Calais (62) under the coordination of #CROSS Gris-Nez, thanks to the action of the @Gendarmerie maritime, the @MarineNationale, the @SauveteursenMer and the @ MerGouv as well as sea users ➡️ https://t.co/9CssoBMaWA pic.twitter.com/IrgJ5Qe0rL
- Prefecture maritime Channel and North Sea (@premarmanche) April 10, 2021
(With AFP)
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