Several boats of sinking migrants were rescued over the weekend in the Strait of Pas-de-Calais and 181 people, including a woman and two children in a state of hypothermia, brought ashore on the French side, announced Sunday and Monday the maritime prefecture.
In high demand throughout the weekend, the Regional Operational Center for Surveillance and Rescue (Cross) Gris-Nez first hired a customs patrol boat overnight from Saturday to Sunday to rescue a boat in distress carrying 40 people, who were dropped off in Dunkirk, explains the maritime prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea in a press release.
A gendarmerie patrol boat then picked up 38 other shipwrecked people and brought them back to Calais, then a maritime Gendarmerie patrol boat and again the Customs patrol boat took care of 35 people, including “a woman and two children rescued in a state of illness. ‘hypothermia’, also brought ashore in Calais.
68 migrants rescued overnight from Sunday to Monday
The night from Sunday to Monday was also busy, with 68 additional migrants rescued, a little further south. Two ships from the National Society for Rescue at Sea (SNSM) brought 38 people back to Berck-sur-Mer, then the customs patrol boat seven migrants and the gendarmerie patrol boat another 23, deposited in both cases in Boulogne-sur-Mer. Sea.
During the week of May 2 to 8 alone, the British authorities counted 792 migrants arriving by sea on 30 small boats, according to figures published by the British Ministry of Defense.
According to the maritime prefecture, 38 migrants died in 2021 while trying to reach England by sea from the northern coast of France, including 27 in the same shipwreck on November 24.