A person who was trying to join the United Kingdom illegally died after the dislocation of an overloaded boat on the night of Sunday, May 19 to Monday, May 19, announced the maritime prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea (Prémar). 61 other passengers were rescued off the French coast, said the premar, confirming information from La Voix du Nord. “There were a lot of departures. A boat that was overloaded was dislocated ” and, among the passengers, “A person has died”she added.
The prefectural authorities were warned around 2:30 a.m., specifies the premar. Surveillance means, mobilizing the towing boat Bee-normandyas well as British boats, and a French navy helicopter, were then committed to assisting people in difficulty, she adds.
Among the rescued people, a child and his mother, in a state of hypothermia, were evacuated by helicopter and hospitalized in Boulogne-sur-Mer, where all the survivors were taken care of by the French emergency services.
Seventy-eight dead in 2024
On Sunday, 139 other migrants aboard two difficulties in difficulty were also rescued off Touquet, Pas-de-Calais, the premar announced in a second press release on Monday afternoon. All of the passengers had asked for assistance, she said. Posed in Calais, these people, one of whom was injured, were taken care of by the land authorities, specifies the premar.
By including the person who died on Monday, at least 12 migrants have died since the beginning of 2025 trying to reach England aboard Small Boatsthese precarious clandestine boats often overloaded.
In 2024, according to the Office for the Fighting Illicit Traffic of Migrants (OLTIM), 78 migrants died in these dangerous crossings, a record from the start, in 2018, of this phenomenon. From January to December 2024, more than 36,800 people arrived in the United Kingdom on makeshift boats, 25 % more than in 2023.
Source: Lemonde