Ocean Viking: only 17 migrants are still in the international waiting area

William Molinié, edited by Yanis Darras 8:27 p.m., November 18, 2022, modified at 8:28 p.m., November 18, 2022

Just a week ago docked in Toulon in the Var, the Ocean Viking, the ship of the NGO SOS Méditérannée.

On board, 234 migrants rescued at sea by the crew.

Faced with the arrival of these people, the State had made available a holiday center as a reception establishment on the Giens peninsula, just a few kilometers from the port. 

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Procedural flaws

But seven days later, only 17 people are still present in this international waiting area.

The others were all authorized to enter French territory.

Among the latter, 44 unaccompanied minors have been placed in nearby reception centres, but 26 have already slipped away from their supervisors, becoming at the same time very difficult to find.

And this is what is likely to happen with the 217 adults authorized to return to French territory by the courts.

Some of them were due to procedural flaws, overcrowding of the hearings or sometimes difficulties in finding interpreters in the allocated time.

These migrants have been redirected to the asylum system and now have seven days to report to the prefecture in order to regularize their situation.

Pessimism at the Ministry of the Interior

It remains to be seen whether they will actually do so, at the risk of then being rerouted to one of the eleven European countries which have volunteered to welcome them.

At the Ministry of the Interior, we want to be quite pessimistic.

"If in the end, we end up expelling seven or eight, it will be a feat", confides to Europe 1 a close to the executive.

For its part, the Paris police headquarters expects to find these migrants in one of the illegal camps in the capital.