ReutersAs usual, Tuesday’s deaths in the English Channel did not stop smuggling gangs from launching more fragile, crowded boats from the French coastline.
Early on Wednesday morning, a BBC team saw an inflatable boat packed with people heading north, close to the coast.
An hour later, a similar boat – likely the same one – was seen heading towards a French beach favored by smugglers near the town of Wimereux to pick up more paying customers.
French police rushed to intercept the group before they boarded the plane, but it was too late. There were more than 40 people on board, some standing or clinging to the side of the ship, as they set off.
although Investigation into Tuesday’s disaster continueslocal authorities opted to send teams of bulldozers and cleaners to dismantle a makeshift migrant camp outside Calais that had been used by many people on board the capsized boat.
“I’m stressed out. I know some of it [dead]. Now the police have taken away my tent and everything.
French officials said most, if not all, of the dead were from the troubled East African country of Eritrea. Many young people abandoned the country to avoid military service.
“I’ve been waiting here for a year. I have no money [to pay the smugglers]. This happens all the time – drownings,” said the Eritrean, who remains determined to cross to Britain where he believes he can find work.
Further south, French fishermen involved in Tuesday’s rescue operation returned to the port of Boulogne with another day’s catch.
Several men told CNN they arrived at the scene less than half an hour after the boat broke apart and helped recover bodies from the water, with everyone aboard struggling in the choppy, frigid waters.
“The less we talk about this, the less we have to think about it,” Bruno Hequet said darkly as he unloaded boxes of fresh conch on the dock.
Reuters
“It’s sad. This shouldn’t happen,” captain Gaetan Baillet said. But when asked who was to blame for the rising death toll, he shrugged.
Dany Patoux, from local immigration charity Osmos 62, said smuggling gangs were clearly responsible, but added that the increasing militarization of the French coast was driving these gangs to take greater risks, or rather said, putting their paying passengers at greater risk.
“All these extra security forces active along our coastlines…off-road vehicles, drones and helicopters…it’s causing nothing but more deaths. Migrants who want to cross are taking greater risks.” ,” Patux said he believed more people were forced onto each boat because police destroyed many of the inflatables.
While the overall mood about the migrant crisis here appears to be pessimistic and largely sympathetic to those trying to cross the Channel in small boats, some warn that frustration with the rising death toll is starting to reshape public opinion.
Olivier Barbarin, the mayor of Le Portel, said Britain must close its borders completely or take steps to make crossings safer.
“We cannot continue to put all these freedom-loving men and women, who have fled war and whose only wish was to reach England, at such risk.”
