a migrant found dead on a beach in Sangatte

A migrant was found dead on Tuesday on a beach in Sangatte (Pas-de-Calais), we learned from a source close to the case and a migrant aid association.

The victim was found unresponsive at Blériot-Plage, on the Opal Coast, from where exiles tried to reach England on makeshift boats.

The maritime prefecture (Premar) of the Channel and the North Sea says it has not been mobilized for a death at sea during the night from Monday to Tuesday, but numerous crossing attempts took place due to the favorable weather conditions.

“Weather window”

“There was a big weather window for the crossings last night, which generated a lot of tension and fights” on the coast, explained Nikolaï Posner, a manager of the Utopia 56 association. The latter received “a lot of emergency ‘calls’ on his telephone line at night, he stressed.

In a video transmitted by the association, a brunette woman in jeans and sneakers lies lifeless at the water’s edge, at night, surrounded by several people, at least one of whom is wearing a life jacket.

The video was initially received around 5:30 a.m. Tuesday by Utopia 56, which operates an emergency number dedicated to migrants on the northern coast.

The last deaths of migrants on the banks of the Channel date back to August 12, when six Afghans aged 21 to 34 lost their lives in the sinking of their boat, due, according to the first elements of the investigation, to “damage engine”, or a malfunction of the boat’s engine.

Four people were indicted and imprisoned in France a few days after the shipwreck for homicide and involuntary injuries, aiding illegal stay by an organized gang and criminal association.

This shipwreck is the deadliest in the Strait of Pas-de-Calais since that which occurred in November 2021, when at least 27 migrants died.

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