Two hundred and twenty-four migrants trying to reach England in makeshift boats were rescued at sea and brought back to the French coast over the weekend in several separate operations, the maritime prefecture announced on Sunday. .
On Saturday morning, seven migrants in difficulty were first rescued off Dunkirk by a customs coastguard boat, according to a first press release released on Saturday by the maritime prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea.
Two rescue operations were then carried out overnight from Saturday to Sunday, and three others during the day on Sunday, still coordinated by the Regional Operational Center for Surveillance and Rescue (CROSS) Gris-Nez, Premar said on Sunday.
Engaged twice, a patrol boat from the French Navy rescued 51 migrants overnight, before recovering 24 other people in difficulty in the same area on Sunday.
An SNSM dinghy from Dunkirk, for its part, assisted the castaways of two other makeshift boats, rescuing 56 people during the night,
then 35 others during the day.
On Sunday, 51 other migrants were rescued off Calais (Pas-de-Calais), then dropped off at the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer by a coastguard patrol boat.
Once at the dock, all were taken care of by the border police (PAF) and the departmental fire and rescue service (SDIS).
Nearly 1,000 migrants arrived on English shores on Saturday after crossing the English Channel, according to British government figures.
They are now nearly 40,000 since the start of the year - already far more than for the whole of 2021 - to have made the perilous crossing aboard small boats, which are generally overloaded.
This maritime sector “
is one of the busiest areas in the world
”, “
with more than 400 commercial ships passing through it per day
” and weather conditions “
often difficult
“, regularly reminds the Premar.
More than 200 people have died or gone missing, at sea or on land, trying to reach England from the northern coast of France since 2014, including 27 in a single day at the end of 2021 in a shipwreck, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).