New tragedy in the English Channel: six Afghan exiles died on Saturday August 12 in the sinking of a boat loaded with 65 to 66 migrants trying to reach England. One to two people remained missing Saturday afternoon.

The six people who died are Afghan men, aged around 30, said Boulogne-sur-Mer deputy prosecutor Philippe Sabatier. The passengers were “almost all Afghans, with some Sudanese, mostly adults but with some minors,” he said. Seven minor injuries were disembarked in Calais and taken to hospital, the others being questioned by the police.

A first victim had been declared dead in the morning after his evacuation by helicopter to Calais hospital, according to the maritime prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea (Premar). The other five had been taken care of by the Notre-Dame du Risban canoe of the National Sea Rescue Society (SNSM).

According to the Maritime Prefecture, up to two other passengers are still wanted. On the French side, the research mobilizes three ships, a helicopter and a plane. Two British ships also took part in the rescue.

“My thoughts are with the victims,” ​​reacted Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on X (ex-Twitter), welcoming “the commitment of the rescue teams mobilized around the @MarineNationale”. The French Secretary of State for the Sea Hervé Berville arrived on site at the end of the afternoon. On the port of Calais, epicenter of relief operations, he pointed to “the responsibility of criminal traffickers who send young people, women, adults to death”, committing to the continuation and intensification of the “relentless fight” of authorities in relation to these networks. “My thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by this tragic loss,” said British Home Secretary Suella Braverman.

The boat was shipwrecked off Sangatte, in Pas-de-Calais, “around 2:00 am”, according to the prosecution. Reported to stop “at the end of the night”, by a merchant ship, it was located “at the very beginning of the morning” by the public service patrol boat Cormoran, detailed the Premar. If the sea was calm during the night, for the continuation of the research, the weather conditions deteriorated, with a rough sea, she added.

Mortuary vans arrived at the port of Calais, where the Cormoran and the SNSM canoe had moored in the morning, noted an AFP journalist. A bus carrying survivors left the enclosure, to reach a prefectural emergency reception room.

“The repression” at the borders to try to dry up this migratory traffic “increases the danger of crossings and pushes people to take more and more risks to cross into England”, deplored a spokesperson for the AFP. association Utopia 56. A meeting on crossings in “small boats” was to be held on Saturday morning, under the aegis of the British Ministry of the Interior.

Since Wednesday evening, attempts to cross migrants aboard small boats had multiplied from the north of France, thanks to the return of good weather. The British Home Office recorded 755 arrivals on Thursday, a daily record since the start of the year.

According to a count made by AFP from official British figures, more than 100,000 migrants have thus crossed the Channel since the development of this phenomenon, in 2018, in response to the locking of the port of Calais and the Channel tunnel. .

In 2022, a record year, 45,000 people made the crossing, despite the dangers incurred in the Strait of Pas-de-Calais, one of the busiest in the world, and the death in November 2021 of at least 27 migrants, aged 7. at 46, in the deadliest shipwreck recorded in the area.

In 2022, five migrants are still dead at sea and four are missing. As part of the judicial investigation opened into the sinking of 2021, eleven alleged smugglers but also seven soldiers – five from the Cross Gris Nez and two crew members from the patrol boat “Le Flamant” – are indicted.

The tragedy had raised tension between Paris and London, who have since agreed to strengthen their fight against this migratory traffic, in the face of which the British government has also redoubled its firmness.