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CRIME

Three held in France after 7-year-old girl’s drowning

Three men were in custody on Monday over the capsizing of a migrant boat in northern France in which a seven-year-old girl drowned, prosecutors said.

Published: 4 March 2024 12:14 CET
Three held in France after 7-year-old girl's drowning
lllustration photo by BERTRAND GUAY / AFP

The suspects were aboard the overloaded small boat when it capsized on Sunday in the Aa river, around 30 kilometres from France’s northern coast.

“We have to work out who was responsible for this group, who brought the victims aboard the boat,” prosecutors in the northern French city of Dunkirk said.

People attempting to reach Britain have increasingly been boarding boats on inland waterways to avoid stepped-up patrols on the French coast.

Among the passengers in the capsizing were ten children aged seven to 13 and six adults, investigators said on Sunday.

The latest death of a migrant trying to reach Britain followed just days after a 22-year-old Turkish man was killed and two more people went missing in the English Channel off Calais.

A total of 78 migrants attempting to cross to Britain were pulled from the sea by French rescuers overnight from Saturday to Sunday, the maritime authority for northern France said.

One group of 11 people was retrieved after they ran aground on a sandbank.

Further rescue operations were underway on Monday morning, with fair weather apparently encouraging more crossing attempts.

More than 670 people reached Britain from France in small boats in February, according to British interior ministry figures, compared with 29,437 over the whole of 2023.

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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

Two computers stolen from French Olympics’ organiser in Lille

Two computers belonging to "a manager responsible for the planning of the Lille Olympic site" were stolen from a car parked in the city, the prosecutor's office said on Tuesday.

Published: 1 May 2024 08:38 CEST
Two computers stolen from French Olympics' organiser in Lille

However, the spokesperson did not specify the nature of the data linked to the Olympic Games that they contained.

“The complaint from a manager responsible for the planning of the Lille Olympic site was received on the evening of April 29 regarding the theft of two laptops and a badge which were in the organiser’s vehicle, which was parked in front of their home,” said Lille prosecutor Carole Etienne.

“Investigations are underway” to identify the suspect and determine “the exact nature of the data that these computers contained in connection with the 2024 Olympics,” she added.

According to a police source, one of the stolen computers was likely to contain “security plans” for the infrastructure of the Olympic village of Villeneuve-d’Ascq in Lille.

The theft occurred Monday at around 6:30 pm, according to this source, who said that access to files hosted on the network and the cloud was blocked by the Paris 2024 IT department.

“In accordance with Paris 2024 procedures, all data recorded on Paris 2024 computer equipment is encrypted and protected by passwords, and as soon as the theft was reported, the computer was locked remotely,”  a spokesperson from the Olympics’ Organising Committee (Cojo) said.

“The security of computer equipment is one of the priorities of Paris 2024, which has taken all risks into account in order to deal with any incident,” the Committee said.

The stolen badge was “an identification badge which does not allow any door to be opened” and “the computer was turned off”, a second police source told AFP.

At the end of February, a bag belonging to an engineer from the City of Paris and containing a computer and two USB sticks where notes relating to the Paris Olympic Games were stored was stolen from a train at Gare du Nord.

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