Four migrants die in English Channel crossing attempt

File photo of a French Police officer looking out over a beach in France

Four migrants have died after a boat capsized during an attempt to cross the English Channel, according to the French coastguard.

Overnight, a navy patrol boat reported that migrants had fallen into the sea off the coast of Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France.

Four people found "unconscious" could not be saved, police added, while 63 were rescued.

UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper described the incident as "truly awful".

The coastguard said several people fell into the sea after part of their boat "deflated".

The initial alert was raised at 04:30 local time (03:30 BST), with a helicopter arriving about 30 minutes later. It found several people "drifting in the water while others were still clinging to the broken rubber dingy".

Fourteen people were rescued by a fishing vessel and 49 others by the French navy ship, the coastguard said.

"All the shipwrecked individuals were then brought ashore in Boulogne and taken care of by the emergency services on land."

Two boats, one from UK sea rescue charity RNLI and one from Border Force, were initially sent from Dover to provide support but were not required to attend the scene, the UK coastguard said.

Jacques Billant, prefect of the Pas-de-Calais region, told reporters nine people were in serious condition.

He said only one person on board was wearing a life jacket, while "a few others had bike tubes".

"Week after week, we observe overloaded boats like this morning's, boats of very poor quality: under inflated, without a floor, without life jackets," he said.

"These are also underpowered boats, which obviously increase the risks of breakdown and sinking."

Jacques Billant said 12 smuggling networks have "been dismantled" and more than 300 arrests have been made since the start of 2024.

UK Home Office figures show 484 migrants crossed the English Channel on Monday and Tuesday.

On 18 June, 882 people crossed the Channel on 15 small boats – a new record for the year so far.

According to Home Office data, those arrivals were the highest in a single day since October 2022.

Over 13,000 people have successfully reached the UK via the Channel so far this year.

According to the UN-affiliated International Organization for Migration (IOM) the most recent deaths mean more than 20 people are known to have died while trying to cross the Channel this year.

This includes a seven-year-old girl who died in March after a small boat attempting to reach the English Channel capsized a few kilometres from the coast of Dunkirk.

A month later five people, including another seven-year-old girl, died while a boat carrying 112 migrants ran aground on a sandbank after leaving Wimereux, near Boulogne, before continuing on.

Reacting to the latest deaths, Mrs Cooper, the UK home secretary, said: "Criminal gangs are making vast profit from putting lives at risk.

"We are accelerating action with international partners to pursue and bring down dangerous smuggler gangs."

Earlier this week, the new Labour government set out plans to tackle the small boat crisis.

Ms Cooper said she would appoint a leader of the UK's new Border Security Command within weeks.

The government hopes the new body will reduce small boat crossings in the English Channel.

Mr Billant, the Pas-de-Calais prefect, said over 1,000 police officers were currently deployed along the entire French northern coastline, "amid heightened aggression from smugglers and migrants alike".

He said 344 crossing attempts had been foiled so far this year.

After elections in the UK and France, will anything change?

The previous Tory government had a flagship policy of countering illegal migration by sending some asylum seekers to Rwanda. But the controversial scheme was axed in the early days of the new Labour government without a single migrant ever having been deported to the east African country.

But despite recent elections in both countries there has been no change of policy in France since Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron signed a cooperation agreement in March last year.

It was the latest of many such deals under in which the UK supplies money and the French step up their policing of the coast, using more manpower and better equipment.

France will be keen to see how the Labour government might change things.

The scrapping of the Rwanda scheme came as no surprise, because the French never thought it was either right or effective.

The scheme had shown no clear sign of having a deterrent effect. Numbers kept going up.

The French view remains that the UK should address the pull factors that keep drawing so many migrants, such as the ease of entering the jobs market undetected and the lack of identity cards.

Governments of all stripes in Paris know the Calais problem is perennial, and the most to be hoped for is more effective operational cooperation with London.