A migrant, “a priori adult and rather of African origin”, died hit by a freight train Sunday morning in Calais, while he was “lying on the track”, announced the prosecution.
The emergency services “were called at 6:02 a.m. for a male pedestrian, of undetermined age, hit by a freight train at chemin Castre”, south-east of Calais, said the Pas-de-Calais firefighters . “The shock was very violent” and the man died despite the intervention of the emergency services.
Suicide or heavy drinking
This unidentified man was at the arrival of the train “lying on the track, and possibly lying in a sleeping bag”, declared the assistant prosecutor of Boulogne-sur-mer, Patrick Leleu. It is “possible that he got up” in the last moments, “without the driver having had, at any time whatsoever, the possibility of avoiding him”, he added. The man died instantly.
“Given the place, which is not the most accessible place” to go and settle, the investigation is moving “either towards the trail of suicide, or that of significant alcoholism, with disorientation “, continued Patrick Leleu. The Calais police station will “get closer to the associations and the migrants themselves” to try to identify him.
Other accidents near encampments where people wait to cross into England
Hundreds of migrants, including Iraqis, Iranians, Sudanese and Eritreans, survive in camps on the northern coast of France, hoping to cross into England.
A 25-year-old Sudanese migrant had already died on March 1 after being hit by a train while walking along a railway track in Marck, a town neighboring Calais.
On November 4, a similar accident occurred a few hundred meters away. A train had hit a group of four migrants traveling on the tracks between Dunkirk and Calais, causing one death, one serious injury and two minor injuries.
On January 15, an 18-year-old Sudanese migrant was killed, also in Marck, crushed by the truck he had fallen from while trying to get on it. A month earlier, a 16-year-old Sudanese teenager had also died there, falling from a heavy weight on the Transmarck business park.
On May 11, a migrant was found “hanged” in a trailer parked in a parking lot in the Transmarck business area, the most likely hypothesis being that of suicide, according to the prosecution.
According to the maritime prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea, the perilous crossings of the Channel, aboard makeshift boats, also left 31 dead and four missing in 2021, and caused another death in 2022.
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