Pas-de-Calais: 63 people rescued off the Channel
A large-scale rescue took place this Sunday, 63 people were rescued by the Pas-de-Calais operational surveillance and rescue center off the English Channel.
“In the afternoon, the Cross Griz-Nez identifies a boarding in difficulty in the Strait of Pas-de-Calais”, informed this Sunday evening the maritime prefecture of the Channel in a press release.
A sharp increase in the number of crossings
The Cross hired a patrol boat from the French Navy to rescue these shipwrecked people. “Once in the area, the boat picks up 63 shipwrecked people on board and drops them off at the port of Calais where they are taken care of by the firefighters and the border police, ”says the maritime prefecture. According to the PA agency’s count published on Sunday, 20,017 people have tried to reach the British coast since the start of the year compared to only 11,300 on the same date last year.
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The phenomenon has developed strongly since 2018 in the face of the closure of the port of Calais (northern France) and Eurotunnel, which migrants took by hiding in vehicles. These crossings also being a subject of regular tension between Paris and London, the British authorities consider insufficient, despite the payment of financial aid, the efforts undertaken on the French side to prevent migrants from boarding.