A person, probably a migrant, was reported missing in the Bidasoa river between Spain and France, local authorities announced on Sunday.
“
Yesterday (Saturday), three people jumped into the Bidasoa River and only two managed to cross it.
This is why the search teams were activated and a backpack was found
"in the Spanish city of Irun, the government of the Spanish Basque Country said in a press release.
"
Everything seems to indicate
" that he is a migrant, said the head of migration issues for this region of northern Spain, Xabier Legarreta, without giving more information on his origin and identity.
"
In the next few hours, we will surely have to face the darkest and most dramatic face of
illegal" migration, he lamented to the press.
The search operations, which began on Saturday around 6 p.m., were to be carried out until 7 p.m. Sunday before resuming on Monday, said the emergency service of the Spanish Basque Country.
On the Spanish side, three boats and a helicopter were deployed, with the support of French firefighters from the Atlantic Pyrenees.
On the French side, the president of the Urban Community of the Basque Country and mayor of Bayonne, Jean René Etchegaray, called in a press release "
to take urgent measures to secure the routes of migrants
".
Faced with the increase in controls at the Franco-Spanish border, migrants are taking more and more risks to enter France.
Last year, three migrants, including an Ivorian and a Guinean, drowned in the Bidasoa.
In October, three Algerians died when they were hit by a train in Ciboure, a few kilometers from the border, to also escape police checks.
In 2021, the number of non-admissions at the Franco-Spanish border in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department jumped 120% compared to 2020 (13,164 against 5,976), according to the prefecture.
Among these migrants, more than half come from the Maghreb countries, and a third from French-speaking countries in sub-Saharan Africa (Mali, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Senegal), according to the French authorities.