A migrant was found dead on Tuesday, September 26, on a beach on the Côte d’Opale, in Pas-de-Calais, Agence France-Presse (AFP) learned from a source close to the matter and from ‘an association helping migrants. The victim was found unresponsive in Blériot-Plage, in the commune of Sangatte, from where exiles tried to reach England on makeshift boats.
According to the first elements of the investigation, it is an Eritrean woman born in 1999. The judicial police are on site to determine the origin of her death. Contacted by AFP, the maritime prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea said it had not been mobilized for a death at sea during the night from Monday to Tuesday, but numerous crossing attempts took place due to the conditions. favorable weather.
“There was a big weather window for the crossings last night, which generated a lot of tension and fights” on the coast, Nikolaï Posner, a manager of the Utopia 56 association, explained to AFP. The latter received “lots of calls” emergency on his telephone line during the night, he said.
A video initially received by Utopia 56
In a video transmitted by the association, a brunette woman in jeans and sneakers lies lifeless at the edge of the water, 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 for migrants on the northern coast.
The last deaths of migrants in 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“engine failure”.
Four people were indicted and imprisoned in France a few days after the shipwreck for homicide and involuntary injuries through a clearly deliberate violation of an obligation of safety or prudence, aiding the illegal stay of an organized gang and criminal conspiracy. 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.