He woke up just before the TER arrived.
A fifth Algerian migrant present at the time of the train accident in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, near Ciboure station was found in Bayonne on Thursday and heard, the Bayonne prosecutor said on Friday.
The accident in Ciboure (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) claimed the lives of three foreigners and seriously injured a fourth on Tuesday.
Investigators had speculated that a fifth man was there, after having found five administrative papers at the scene of the tragedy.
This 28-year-old Algerian migrant, found in a city street by a BAC patrol, confirmed to the police the account of the tragedy advanced by the injured person, a few hours after his hospitalization.
To read also "They were lying on the rails": in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, emotion after the death of three migrants hit by a TER
The small group had formed a little earlier in Spain and they did not know each other.
It was first made up of four people and then five.
They circulated on foot, according to the report by Jérôme Bourrier, the Bayonne prosecutor.
The railway track to escape the controls
The group used the railway tracks in order to escape possible police checks.
During the night, the five Algerians lay down on the railroad tracks to rest.
The man found on Thursday said he woke up a little before the others and stepped aside when the TER passed at 5 a.m., shortly before entering Ciboure station from Hendaye, on the Franco-Spanish border.
He fled after witnessing the scene.
"A certain number of administrative documents were found on the spot" among which "it is necessary to identify 5 people even though to date there are only 4 victims", had declared the Prosecutor, to support the trail of an accident survivor.
Place of passage of migrants
The prosecutor had thus spoken of “administrative documents concerning an individual convicted by the Bayonne Criminal Court for acts of break-in, imprisoned at the Mont-de-Marsan penitentiary center then released and escorted back to the border the same day (editor's note: of the accident) ”.
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TER accident in Saint-Jean-de-Luz: "Four people were lying on the track"
On Wednesday evening, around 300 people gathered in front of the Saint-Jean-de-Luz station, at the call of local associations of aid to migrants, to pay tribute to the victims of this tragedy as well as "to alert, to protest , to be indignant ”, according to the local newspaper Sud Ouest.
Spain is one of the main gateways to Europe for migrants and the Basque Country is one of the important crossing points.
The region had already been the scene of similar dramas last August and May, with the death of two migrants who tried to cross the Bidasoa border river to cross into France.