Three people have died after a boat sank in the Channel carrying close to 50 asylum-seekers, French maritime authorities have said.
A rescue operation was launched early on Wednesday morning after a life jacket was spotted in the water, with a helicopter and rescue boats mobilised for the search and rescue operation, according to the French maritime prefecture for the Channel and the North Sea.
Forty-six people were rescued after the incident off the coast of Calais.
A further two people were unconscious when brought onto one of the rescue boats and received immediate first aid, they added. However, the deaths were confirmed by onshore medical teams once they reached Calais.
A passenger ferry later recovered another person who was seen overboard during search operations, and they were declared dead after being flown to hospital in Boulogne-sur-Mer. A fourth person was also injured.
A search was ongoing for other people still potentially in the water, French authorities said in their statement on Wednesday morning.
An investigation has been opened by the Boulogne-sur-Mer public prosecutor’s office.
The latest tragedy brings the number of deaths in the Channel this year up to at least 56, and comes less than a week after a baby died while a boat carrying 65 people got into difficulty.
CEO of the Refugee Council, Enver Solomon, said their analysis showed crossings were getting ever deadlier, with the total number of deaths this year being greater than the previous three years combined.
At the beginning of October, a two-year-old child was crushed to death and three other people died in two attempts to make the perilous crossing from France. French authorities said the child had died after being trampled following a “wave of panic” among the migrants trying to board a dinghy.
More than 28,000 people have crossed the Channel so far this year, according to official figures. Just under 30,000 people did so in 2023, after a peak of 45,755 people in 2022.
Warning “we cannot normalise or accept this”, Dr Wanda Wyporska, chief executive at Safe Passage International, said: “Just days on since a baby died in a tragedy in the Channel, two more people have lost their lives on this dangerous journey.
“This government must open safe routes urgently. Without them, the smugglers will continue to exploit the lack of safe alternatives for people fleeing war and persecution. We fear we will only see more people dying in their attempts to reach protection here.”
Such attempts to reach Britain first started to be detected in late 2018 after increasingly stringent security measures at ports and the Eurotunnel succeeded in preventing stowaways on lorries and trains bound for the UK.
Citizens of five countries – Iran, Albania, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria – have made up two-thirds of those crossing in small boats since 2018, according to the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory.
Those who reach Britain face often years-long waits for their asylum claims to be processed, with the Refugee Council estimating that the number of applications waiting to be determined could stand at 118,063 in January.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “This devastating tragedy is a further reminder that the people-smuggling gangs only care about the profits they make, not about the lives they put at risk.
“We will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice. Our new border security command will strengthen our global partnerships and enhance our efforts to investigate, arrest, and prosecute these evil criminals.”
