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Video length: 2 min.
A boat of smugglers picked up around fifty migrants on a beach full of tourists, in Pas-de-Calais, Tuesday July 18. The improbable scene saw several of these refugees being pushed back into the open sea.
In broad daylight, migrants try to set sail, near children on a sailing course, Tuesday July 18. Among them, a family with a baby catches the eye of a woman in a kayak. “It’s always shocking, of course, to see that“, confides a man, two days later. Tuesday, a boat of smugglers arrives near a beach in Pas-de-Calais to embark about fifty people.
Pushed back out to sea
Some are pushed back and end up in the middle of the sea.”I have already seen a lot of departures of migrants around. I know it happens, but [je suis] more shocked by the fact that it’s happening here, in the middle of the day, when there’s a lot of people, and in the harbour, in a place that is nevertheless heavily guarded, with the harbor master’s office, the authorities who are right there, in the port“, believes Hugo Gourdin, sailing coach. That day, the police recorded 17 boat departures, 11 of which were intercepted.