Nearly 250 migrants were rescued at sea overnight from Friday to Saturday and during the day on Saturday after finding themselves in difficulty trying to cross the Channel, the maritime prefecture announced on Saturday evening.
These 243 migrants were picked up and dropped off at the quayside in the ports of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Dunkirk and Calais, where they were “Taken care of by the border police (PAF) and the departmental fire and rescue service (SDIS)”, wrote the maritime prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea in a press release.
The Gris-Nez operational surveillance and rescue center (Cross) “Has engaged many maritime resources” for these relief operations, explains the press release, noting the dangerousness of this sector where the winds are strong, the traffic is dense and the water temperature, currently in fall.
Ever more numerous attempts
Friday, the maritime prefect of the Channel and the North Sea had noted during an interview with Agence France-Presse “A new acceleration” crossing attempts in November, which had already doubled over the past three months, while their pace slowed down in the fall of previous years.
Its services had recorded 15,400 departure attempts and 3,500 passengers rescued over the first eight months of the year. “Today, we have more than doubled these figures: we are at 31,500 migrants having left the coasts and 7,800 migrants having been rescued”, was alarmed Friday Philippe Dutrieux. The human toll for 2021 has gone from one death on August 31 to “Seven dead or missing”, he lamented.