Category: Reports

7 May 2018:  Blessing Matthew

18 May 2018: Mamadi Conde

25 May 2018: Mohamed Fofana

15 November 2018 : Douala Gakou

6 February 2019: Tamimou Derman

7 September 2019: Mohamed Ali Bouhamdi

21 June 2021: Mohamed Mahayedin

On 2 January this year, Fathallah Belafhail’s name was added to the already too long list of men and women who have died or disappeared in the region of Briançon while they were trying to reach France.

Fathallah was found dead in the Alps, near Modane.
He was 31 years old and of Moroccan origin.
He probably crossed the French-Italian border at an altitude of more than 2000m, at night, under-equipped to face the snow or the temperatures which are regularly around -10°C.
This person paid the consequences of the manhunt conducted day and night by the Border Police, the Gendarmerie Nationale and the soldiers of Operation Sentinelle in this region, tracking down and pushing back people, sometimes entire families, who have come to seek asylum in Europe. This morbid militarisation of the border pushes the people on the move to go always further off the beaten track and take bigger and bigger risks.

A few lines in the local press, a call for witnesses from the gendarmerie of Modane on twitter: Zakaria died in the most total indifference. His family is still waiting for the repatriation of his body, which is being kept for investigation purposes.

For our borders to stop being cemeteries, for these people not to have died in vain, let’s remember them and let’s relay the information around us.