between migrants and Brexit, the fishermen of the English Channel in the midst of a storm

Sobs in his voice, Karl Maquinghen struggles to find the words to describe what he calls ” the horror “. Second on the Boulonnais trawler St. James II, this 37-year-old fisherman, twenty-one of whom spent on a boat, was the first to see the bodies of the 27 migrants who perished off Calais on November 24. “It was a horror movie, He confides to a few journalists, his eyes cloudy, a few hours after the sinking of the fragile inflatable boat. To see so many dead next to us is shocking. “

Auditioned by the maritime gendarmerie of Cherbourg, the men of the crew explain having seen at the beginning of the afternoon “About fifteen bodies which floated over a radius of 500 meters, like Titanic, but it was not cinema ”, relates Loïc Margollé, the owner of the Saint-Jacques II. Karl Maquinghen confirms. “I saw dead people, children … we will have it left. If we had arrived five or ten minutes before, maybe we could have saved them. “

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Only two survivors, hypothermic, were recovered from the cold waters of the English Channel. This drama which cost the lives of 17 men, 7 women and 3 children who wanted to rally England is the deadliest that the Opal Coast has known. It is in addition to the 3 dead and 4 missing recorded since January. In 2021, the Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea has already recorded 1,281 attempted crossings against 868 for the whole of 2020. The high-security fences erected over 41 kilometers around the entrance to the Channel tunnel have dissuaded traffic exiles attempting to cross this passage.

Decoders: Immigration to UK: Channel crossings tripled in 2021

Psychological cell

Now, to reach British land, smugglers crisscross the beaches before taking men, women and children in makeshift canoes. The boss of St. James II feels helpless. “It’s been a year since this last. This summer, we saw a Zodiac with around 40 people standing against our boat. They were saying “Take our children! Take our children! ” And there is nothing we can do. All my men were crying. “

“You tell yourself that you really have to be at the end of your life to risk your children’s lives. We are all fathers of families, we feel sick to them. »Nicolas Margollé, fisherman

The protocol obliges them first of all to warn the emergency services via channel 16 of their VHF radio or by telephone to 196. The alert is then triggered at the regional operational center for surveillance and rescue, the Cross of Cap Gris -Nose. It is from this lighthouse which illuminates the Strait of Pas-de-Calais, one of the busiest sea lanes in the world, that the emergency services intervene.

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