A 7-year-old girl drowned on Sunday March 3 in Watten (North) in the Aa canal, which flows into the North Sea, while she was on a small boat. Sixteen migrants, including ten children aged 7 to 13, were on board and all fell into the water, according to authorities.
The boat “was not sized to support so many people”, said the Northern prefecture in a press release. She capsized inland, around thirty kilometers from the coast, “shortly after the rise of these people”she added to Agence France-presse.
“Several police custody is underway”, announced to AFP the public prosecutor’s office, which opened an investigation for involuntary homicide, involuntary injuries, criminal conspiracy and “aiding the entry and illegal stay of an organized gang with endangerment of others”. This shipwreck so far from the coast could be explained by the fact that migrants are now moving further inland, in order to avoid surveillance and make their way to the beaches out of sight.
” Anger “
Alerted by a walker, “Gendarmes and firefighters immediately rushed to the scene”. The little girl is dead “on site, following a cardio-respiratory arrest, attempts at resuscitation by emergency services” having been “vain”said the prosecution.
The little girl’s parents, who were on board with their three other children, “were transported to the Dunkirk hospital center”, underlined the prefecture. On board this small boat, “probably stolen”according to her, “There were also a couple, two men and six young children”whose “days are not in danger”.
A total of ten people were taken to hospital. Five others – two men and three children – were welcomed in a room provided by the Watten town hall.
The criminal investigation opened by the Dunkirk public prosecutor’s office was entrusted to the Dunkirk-Hoymille gendarmerie research brigade and the National Office for the Fight against Illicit Migrant Trafficking (Oltim). “Today, border policies have killed again”wrote on X L’Auberge des migrants, an association helping migrants. “Anger prevents us from having words”reacted Utopia 56.
Twelve deaths in 2023
This tragedy is the third resulting in deaths in 2024 during attempts to cross the Channel to reach England. On Wednesday, a 22-year-old Turk who fell from his boat off the coast of Calais for a still undetermined reason died and two other migrants were missing. An Eritrean national was indicted and imprisoned on Saturday in this case. Born in 1996, he is being prosecuted for manslaughter and “aiding illegal entry and stay”. On the night of January 13 to 14, five migrants, including a 14-year-old Syrian teenager, died in Wimereux (Pas-de-Calais) while trying to reach a boat already at sea in water around 9 degrees .
Twelve migrants lost their lives in 2023 while trying to cross the Channel, according to the Channel and North Sea maritime prefecture. In 2023, 29,437 migrants reached the English coast illegally, compared to 45,774 in 2022, a record year, according to figures from the British Interior Ministry. About 20% are from Afghanistan. Then come the Iranians, Turks, Eritreans and Iraqis.
One of the most common smuggling networks “more important” organizing these crossings was dismantled on February 21 in a vast international operation. Nineteen people were arrested in Germany in this raid which involved the French, Belgian and German authorities, coordinated by Europol and Eurojust.