(Calais) La Manche, a new “open-air cemetery”: 27 migrants died Wednesday in the sinking of their boat off Calais, the starting point, in northern France, of attempted crossings to the British coasts, sending a shock wave to Paris and London after many weeks of tension.
“France will not let the Channel become a cemetery,” said President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday, who had announced a death toll of 31 before it was reduced to 27 dead and two survivors by the French ministry of Interior.
The French head of state called for an “emergency meeting of European ministers concerned by the migration challenge” and assured that “everything will be done to find and condemn those responsible” for this shipwreck.
“Shocked, revolted and deeply saddened”, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, for his part assured that he wanted to “do more” with France to discourage illegal crossings of the Channel.
During a telephone interview on Wednesday evening, MM. Johnson and Macron “agreed on the urgency of increasing their joint efforts to prevent these crossings and to do everything possible to prevent gangs that put lives at risk,” said a British spokesperson.
After weeks of tension on the migration issue, London and Paris had nevertheless already undertaken to strengthen their cooperation in an attempt to stop these departures, in particular in the wake of the arrival on 11 November of 1,185 migrants on the English coast, a record number.
This tragedy, feared by the authorities and associations for months, is by far the deadliest since the soaring in 2018 of the migratory crossings of the Channel, in the face of the growing lockdown of the port of Calais and the Channel tunnel, used until there by migrants trying to reach England.
“Strong emotion”
Rescue ships bringing back the victims docked in the evening in Calais, where a hangar was opened in the port to accommodate the bodies.
The remains must be transferred to the Lille forensic institute for an autopsy. An investigation was opened for “assistance with the irregular entry and stay in an organized group”, “homicide and unintentional injuries” and “criminal association”.
According to Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, four smugglers suspected of being linked to the tragedy were arrested.
Before this sinking, the death toll since the start of the year stood at three dead and four missing.
Mr. Darmanin denounced on Twitter the “criminal nature of the smugglers who organize these crossings”, calling for “a very tough international response”.
The drama took place on a “long boat”, an inflatable boat with a flexible bottom which tends to fold up when it takes on water and is overloaded, we learned from the rescuers.
The use of these particularly dangerous and poor quality boats has become more and more frequent since this summer.
According to the maritime prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea, three helicopters and three boats participated in the search. About fifty people were on board the boat which had left Dunkirk, said a source familiar with the matter.
“People are dying in the Channel which is turning into an open-air cemetery, like the Mediterranean,” said Pierre Roques, coordinator of the Auberge des Migrants, an association in Calais.
About fifty people gathered in the evening near the port for a vigil.
The United Nations Refugee Agency, “shocked and upset”, estimated that “only coordinated and united efforts […] will prevent further tragedies ”.
The “morbid work” of the smugglers
The director general of the French Immigration Office, Didier Leschi, denounced the smugglers “who try at all costs to maintain camps near the sea to facilitate the morbid work of making migrants cross the Channel, their risks and dangers ”.
Attempts to migrate across the Channel on board small boats have doubled in the past three months, the maritime prefect of the Channel and the North Sea, Philippe Dutrieux, warned last Friday.
As of November 20, 31,500 migrants had left the coast since the start of the year and 7,800 migrants had been rescued, he said. A trend, he had noticed, which has not abated despite the winter temperatures.
According to London, 22,000 migrants made the crossing in the first ten months of the year.