This morning, a cocktail party was organised at the regional operational centre for surveillance and rescue (Cross) in Gris-Nez (Pas-de-Calais). In this old building overlooking the Opal Coast, where maritime rescue operations are coordinated, a member of the management celebrated his departure. On a clear day, from Gris-Nez, the view is breathtaking and extends to the cliffs of Dover in England, which migrants who have been setting out for several years via the Strait of Pas-de-Calais on board small inflatable boats dream of reaching. More than 20,000 will have successfully completed the crossing by 2024.
On Tuesday, September 3, while the cocktail party was in full swing, a drama unfolded beneath the windows of the Cruz. A sinister ballet of boats began to move, less than three kilometers from the coast. There were fishing boats, a customs patrol boat, a state-chartered ship, resources from the National Society of Maritime Lifeguards (SNSM) and even, in the sky, helicopters. Everyone was searching for survivors after a boat carrying sixty-five immigrants sank.
On Tuesday evening, the provisional report issued by the Boulogne-sur-Mer prosecutor, Guirec Le Bras, indicated that fifty-one people had been rescued – including several in a state of severe hypothermia and two in a state of absolute emergency – two missing and twelve dead, including ten women and six minors. Most of the victims were from Eritrea. This is the highest number recorded since the shipwreck that occurred on November 24, 2021, at the end of which twenty-seven lifeless bodies were found.
Gaëtan Baillet usually fishes for lobsters. On Tuesday, September 3, he saw “floating bodies”. The head of the Boulogne-sur-Mer The Breton Baillet responded to the “Mayday” alert message issued shortly after 11 a.m. by the Cross, which called on available boats in the area to rescue people at sea. This is the first time that Gaëtan Baillet has recovered a body in the water. “It’s a bit shocking”he said modestly. His cousin, Axel Baheu, aboard the gillnet MurexHe recovered three corpses before him. It was also the first time and he cried.
Axel Baheu had spotted the boat around ten in the morning, about a hundred metres from his craft. The migrants were packed in there, perhaps eighty of them, some astride the canoe’s poorly inflated tubes, at least one with a swimming pool buoy in his hand, almost all without life jackets.
You have 66.36% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
