Four migrants died near a beach in Wimereux, France, on Saturday night as they tried to reach a boat at sea in freezing water to cross the English Channel, the first deadly tragedy of 2024 off the coast France.
“At this stage, we regret four deceased migrants and one migrant in absolute distress who has been transferred to the Boulogne-sur-Mer hospital,” the maritime prefecture of the English Channel and the North Sea (Prémar) told AFP, confirming information from La Voix du North.
The events occurred around 2:00 a.m. “At sea, people had difficulty reaching a boat that was already in the water,” she explained.
Police officers on land “reported the departure of the boat and the people in distress in the water,” Prémar added. A “large number of the shipwrecked were rescued by the police on site”.
The intervention tug Abeille Normandie, “which was on patrol in the area, put his boat in the water to rescue the castaways,” and “at that moment the crew identified lifeless and unconscious people in the water,” the same source continued.
The last two deaths date back to December 15, when two migrants died during two separate crossing attempts on the same day.
Almost 30,000 crossings
On November 22, a man and a woman died when their boat sank. A few days later, a third body was discovered on a beach in Pas-de-Calais.
On August 12, six Afghans died in a shipwreck, the deadliest in the Pas-de-Calais Strait since November 24, 2021, leaving at least 27 migrants dead.
Since the 1990s and after the closure of a Red Cross center in Sangatte (Pas-de-Calais) in 2002, hundreds of exiles crowded into tents and makeshift shelters in Calais or Dunkirk to reach England hidden in trucks or by boat.
According to the UK Home Office, 29,437 migrants reached English shores illegally in 2023, compared to 45,774 in 2022. However, the 2023 toll remains the second highest ever recorded and is higher than that of 2021 (28,526) .
Around 20% of migrants who arrived on English shores in 2023 came from Afghanistan, according to data up to November 29. Next come the Iranians (12%), then the Turks (11%), the Eritreans (9%) and the Iraqis (9%).
In March, London and Paris agreed for the UK to contribute more than 734 million euros over three years to strengthen surveillance on French beaches and crack down on smuggling gangs.