Research was underway on Thursday to find sixteen men who escaped last night from an administrative detention center in Oissel, in Seine-Maritime. Last October, nine people had already managed to leave the establishment.
There was a “escape during the night of 16 detainees at the Administrative Detention Center (Cra) in Oissel“, indicates the prefecture of Seine-Maritime to Agence France Presse.
Measures have “immediately taken to reinforce the patrols of the Administrative Detention Center and the Departmental Directorate of Public Security inside and outside the site“installed in the premises of a police academy, details the prefecture.
According to our information, the facts would have occurred around 2am. The escapees were in the same room as during the previous escape. They would have managed to dismantle a window using a television wall bracket, adds the same police source.
The police and gendarmerie were alerted and the description of the individuals was sent to them in order to initiate the search. The Prefect went there. Legal proceedings have been opened with the Rouen public prosecutor’s office.
In October 2022, nine men had already escaped from the same administrative detention center.
“The police services arrested five detainees who escaped last October. They were all sentenced to prison terms.t”, four of whom received firm prison sentences and were incarcerated, while the 5th was given a suspended sentence and deported, according to the prefecture.
Opened in 2004, the CRA of Oissel is one of the 25 centers of this type that exist in France. It can accommodate up to 72 people, men but also women with their children. Administrative detention is a decision taken by the administration against a foreign national concerned by a removal measure (expulsion, obligation to leave French territory, etc.) and who cannot immediately leave French territory.
According to the annual report carried out on administrative detention by five associations, including Cimade and France Terre d’Asile, 662 people were placed in Oissel in 2021, the vast majority of them men, of Albanian, Algerian and Georgian nationality.
The average length of detention in Oissel was 17.9 days in 2021. Since 2019, the maximum length of detention authorized by law has been doubled, from 45 to 90 days. At the same time, at the national level, the average duration of detention observed would have increased from 16.6 days in 2019 to 22 days in 2021.
With AFP