Police in northern France said a person had turned themselves in Saturday claiming to have killed five people in the Dunkirk area.

Two security guards and two migrants were killed near Dunkirk Saturday, police said, while a fifth person was slain in Wormhout, around five kilometres (three miles) south of the Channel port city.

The suspect turned himself in to a police station in Ghyvelde just east of Dunkirk, claiming to have perpetrated all the killings, a source familiar with the investigation said without providing more details about the incident.

The local prefecture said an investigation had been opened into the deaths.