An Eritrean migrant died and three others, compatriots, were slightly injured on Friday at Valenciennes station, victims of an “electric arc” as they tried to get on a freight wagon, which finally caught fire.
“Factually, there is a death, a body on the way,” told AFP the head of the Departmental Directorate of Public Security in the North, Thierry Courtecuisse.
“One person died, electrified on the freight wagon. Four other people were taken to hospital, slightly injured, rather shocked than anything else,” said the comptroller general of the firefighters of the North, Gilles Grégoire, specifying that It was the “final report”, the rubble of the wagon having been searched.
The fourth “injured” is an SNCF employee, “especially shocked”, while two firefighters were also slightly injured, according to firefighters.
According to the prosecutor of Valenciennes, Jean-Philippe Vicentini, who came to the scene, the victims are all of Eritrean nationality. “These are migrants, who could be minors,” he added.
“Apparently, the one who died would have climbed on the wagon and would have triggered the electric arc”, specified the magistrate.
The fire was brought under control by early evening.
According to the mayor of Valenciennes, Laurent Degallaix, the train was to “go back to Calais”, where hundreds of migrants are flocking to try to cross into England.
But the SNCF then told AFP that the train was coming from Calais, en route to the Spanish border.
“The investigation will make it possible to understand what happened”, according to the SNCF, for whom the only certainty is that the four migrants, “were seen on the roof of the train at the time of the electrification” which caused the fire, without it being possible to immediately determine whether they were climbing in or trying to get out.
– “Dead on the spot” –
“Migrants infiltrated and climbed on the wagon which was covered. The first one who climbed made a common thread, with an electric arc, and the wagon caught fire,” said the mayor to AFP.
The first migrant to be mounted “was thrown to the ground and died instantly”, he added. “His comrades were injured.”
The fire started in a wagon containing tires, which caused an impressive column of smoke, with, according to the firefighters, a “high risk of spreading to two refrigerated wagons and a TER”.
The station, closed, was resupplied with electricity in the evening, and traffic, interrupted, resumed on one lane towards Lille, but “at least two lanes are not circulating”, according to the SNCF. Traffic “will remain disrupted in the coming days”, given the extent of the damage, “with melted tires dumped on the track, catenaries which have melted”, while the station hall “will have to be cleaned soot”.
The prefect of the North, Georges-François Leclerc, had visited the scene, an AFP journalist found.
Firefighters had also set up a tent in front of a medical vehicle outside the station, around which a security perimeter had been established.
Other migrants have, in recent months, died on railway tracks in Hauts-de-France. A Sudanese migrant was killed on March 1 when he was hit by a train near Calais as he was walking along the railway line. On November 4, a train hit a group of four migrants traveling on the tracks between Dunkirk and Calais, causing one death, one serious injury and two minor injuries.
Attempts to cross by sea to England left 38 dead in 2021, according to a report from the maritime prefecture and a candidate for exile died at sea in January.