The research, started Sunday early evening, was stopped after midnight. They have not restarted since.

The swimmer has been missing since Sunday in the Channel is "probably" a migrant, AFP learned Wednesday from a judicial source, which would bring to two the number of recently missing migrants crossing this strait.

"The most likely hypothesis"

A Belgian national who was sailing aboard a sailboat on Sunday told the Maritime Gendarmerie conducting the investigation that he "saw a man in the water calling for help in English, equipped with a belt with empty plastic bottles. and makeshift palms "about 22 kilometers off Dunkirk, told AFP the prosecutor of Dunkerque. "He tried to catch it several times but each time the person slipped, and the last time he started to drift," the same source added. "It must have been a migrant trying to swim across the English Channel, that's the most likely assumption."

The research started Sunday early evening by relief and French maritime authorities were stopped after midnight, and have not restarted since.

"The border kills, silently"

Migrants regularly try to cross the English Channel in makeshift boats, most of the time intercepted by the French or English authorities. A rescue operation, which mobilized the French and Belgian authorities, was launched on 9 August off England after three people fell from a small boat. Two migrants were rescued but one woman was not found.

The searches had been interrupted. "The border kills, silently", then denounced the French association Calais Migrant Solidarity.