Dunkirk sea rescuers, between “frustration” and feeling of “work done”

The sea is calm, the sun is shining, Thursday 13 January. Alain Le Daguénel, president of the SNSM (sea rescuers) station in Dunkirk (North), talks about“a migrant’s time”: “These are the ideal conditions for attempted crossings even with their gear that is not a boat. It’s murder to go to sea with that”. The lifeguard, retired from the merchant navy, shows us a sort of large buoy, “they go up to 50 in there”.

In 2021, more than 28,000 migrants made the perilous Channel crossing to reach England, three times more than in 2020, a record. Among them, there are in particular the 27 victims of a shipwreck which occurred on November 24 off Calais. SNSM sea rescuers, all volunteers, rescued 813 people. “Since September, we only go out for migrants, it’s endless. I’m going to tell you something that’s really not funny: among the victims of November 24, there’s a whole family that we had picked up ten days before. It tore us apart.”

>>> Shipwreck of migrants in the Channel: the last of the 27 victims has been identified, announces the Paris prosecutor’s office.

We leave the marina for the city center of Dunkirk. Aymeric de Broucker, boater at the SNSM for 20 years, opens the doors of his insurance firm to us: “When we bring them all back, we are still satisfied. We have the feeling of the work done. Afterwards, there is still a certain frustration to see them leave wet, in the cold, sometimes in the middle of the night. It’s enough psychologically difficult to live with.”

“We, when we bring them back, it’s because for them it’s a failure of their attempt to cross.”

Aymeric De Broucker

at franceinfo

The Dunkirk SNSM station operates with a total of 32 volunteers, including three doctors. Doctor Charles Hudelo, cardiologist, is marked by these rescues and he would like more support from the State: “Going to pick up a three-month-old infant in the open sea, at night, when the mother looks at you with haggard eyes presenting you with her empty bottle, it touches you… Saving human life is free, we don’t touch anything. These are hours and hours of fuel that we pay at the association’s expense.”

The Dunkirk station is no longer sized to carry out so many rescues. The SNSM’s wish is therefore that the State be able to cover 100% of the operating costs of its missions.