A hundred migrants trying to win the United Kingdom aboard clandestine boats were rescued in the Channel in twenty-four hours, French authorities announced on Saturday, June 14. In all, 99 candidates for exile were rescued in several separate operations between Thursday evening and Friday evening, explains the maritime prefecture of the English Channel and the North Sea (Premar), in a press release.
The night from Thursday to Friday was marked by numerous departures of migrant boats, underlines the Premar. According to the count of the British authorities, 919 migrants crossed the Channel on Friday, out of fourteen boats.
One of the rescue operations carried out on Friday focused on a boat that took the water off Dunkirk, details the Premar. A public service patroller recovered 63 people on board on board. The sixteen other occupants of the canoe refused to be rescued at first while the boat continued to deflate. They were finally recovered by two other ships and brought back to the French coasts.
In the early evening on Friday evening, while the Pas-de-Calais department was classified as orange vigilance to thunderstorms and the weather conditions deteriorated, nine occupants of a boat were rescued. On Thursday evening, “A floating boat but without engine” had also been identified and the three people who were on board recovered.
Since the beginning of the year, at least fifteen people have died in the Channel, according to a count of the France-Presse (AFP) agency from official figures. In 2024 there were 78, a record since the appearance in 2018 of the English Channel crossings in “Small Boats”, these precarious clandestine boats often overloaded.
Source: Lemonde