Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: MAGALI COHEN / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 15:35 p.m., December 16, 2023

A man has been taken into custody as part of the investigation into the death of a migrant found unresponsive on a beach in Sangatte, Pas-de-Calais, on Friday after an abortive attempt to cross the English Channel. An investigation has been opened for manslaughter and aiding illegal aliens as part of an organised gang

A man has been taken into custody as part of the investigation into the death of a migrant found lifeless on a beach in Sangatte, Pas-de-Calais, on Friday after an abortive attempt to cross the Channel, the prosecutor's office said on Saturday. "A 33-year-old man of Iraqi nationality has been taken into custody, both for his attitude of incitement to violence against the security forces during their intervention and because of indications suggesting a role as a smuggler," said the public prosecutor of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Guirec Le Bras.

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An investigation has been opened on charges of manslaughter and aiding illegal aliens as part of an organised gang, he said. An autopsy is planned to try to identify the cause of death of the man found on the beach.

Found unresponsive on Friday morning after an aborted attempt to cross the English Channel, he was pronounced dead at midday. According to Guirec Le Bras' account on Friday, "a group of 70 migrants left for sea with a 'small boat', but the boat returned to the beach" at around 07:00 a.m., for an unknown reason.

Another death on the night of Thursday to Friday

Another migrant trying to reach England died on the night of Thursday to Friday off the coast of Gravelines (North) in the sinking of the inflatable boat on which he had embarked. According to the report released on Friday evening by the Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea (Prémar), 62 people were rescued during the shipwreck, including the deceased migrant. "Two people are believed to be missing," she added. According to Mehdi Benbouzid, the public prosecutor of Saint-Omer, who was in charge of the shipwreck, a man suspected of being one of the two pilots of the boat, which left Oye-Plage, was still in police custody on Saturday.

On Friday, 166 people were rescued at sea during attempted crossings and other rescue operations are taking place on Saturday, Premar said. "For nearly 36 hours, more than a thousand exiles have been trying to cross the Channel. At least two died, several people were taken to hospital, hundreds of them are soaked and frozen. The situation is catastrophic," the exile aid association Utopia 56 wrote on X.

The last migrant deaths in the English Channel were on November 22, when three people died when their boat sank: a man and a woman identified the same day, then a third person found dead on a beach in Pas-de-Calais, whose link to the shipwreck has been established, according to prosecutor Guirec Le Bras on Saturday.