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A two-year-old child is among four people who died in “two tragedies” while attempting to cross the English Channel on Saturday, the Prefect of Pas-de-Calais region has confirmed.
Jacques Billant, said that in the first incident on Saturday, the French coastguard responded to a boat carrying nearly 90 people on board which was suffering engine failure.
A total of 15 people were recovered from onboard to a tow vessel called l’Abeille, including the boy who was unconscious and despite a medical team being scrambled by helicopter, he was declared dead.
French interior minister Bruno Retailleau said the child was “trampled to death in a boat” trying to reach England.
Mr Billant said that the other 14 migrants, including a 17-year-old who suffered burns to his legs, were taken to the port of Boulogne to receive care before being questioned by police.
In the second incident, a boat with 83 people on board which had sailed from the Calais area, suffered several engine failures which caused panic on board leading to some of the occupants falling into the sea who were all rescued.
Mr Billant said that when migrants were transferred from the inflatable boat to the Flamant – a French navy patrol boat, three people were found unconscious at the bottom of the boat.
He said that they were “probably crushed and suffocated during the jostling and drowned in the 40 centimetres of water present in the boat”.
He added: “Despite the intervention of the doctors, they were declared dead. They are two men and a woman, all three around 30 years old.”
Mr Billant told a press conference that the two incidents on Saturday followed previous fatal incidents on September 3 and 15 – and brings the total of deaths so far this year to 51.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper posted on X on Saturday afternoon: “It is appalling that more lives have been lost in the Channel today, including a young child, as criminal smuggler gangs continue to organise these dangerous boat crossings.
“The gangs do not care if people live or die – this is a terrible trade in lives.”
The UK saw the first arrivals in five days on Friday from across the English Channel as 395 people landed on British shores.
The latest arrivals, who had travelled in seven boats, brought the total for the year to 25,639.
This compares to 25,330 by the same date last year and 33,611 in 2022.
Some of those arriving on Friday were pictured wearing life jackets as they were brought to shore at Dover on a Border Force vessel.
The arrivals came on the same day as the UK and other G7 nations agreed on an anti-smuggling action plan designed to boost cooperation on the issue following talks in Italy.
The Home Office said this includes joint investigations and intelligence sharing in a bid to target criminal smuggling routes.
The action plan also details “working collaboratively” with social media companies to monitor the internet and different platforms to prevent them from being used to enable migrant smuggling and people trafficking.
This includes calling on social media companies “to do more to respond to online content that advertises migrant smuggling services”.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.
“As we have seen with so many recent devastating tragedies in the Channel, the people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay. We will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.
“We are making progress, bolstering our personnel numbers in the UK and abroad. Our new Border Security Command will strengthen our global partnerships and enhance our efforts to investigate, arrest and prosecute these evil criminals.”
