One person has died trying to cross the Channel in an overloaded boat, after another person died earlier attempting the same journey, according to the French authorities.
In the latest incident, 15 people were rescued after a boat containing 40 people picked up more migrants on the coast of Gravelines, in northern France, at around 3am on Thursday.
Three people were rescued from the water and 12 others onboard the dinghy asked for assistance, the French coastguard said. One of the people rescued was unconscious and was declared dead after resuscitation attempts failed.
It followed a rescue operation after reports that a group of people had tried to board a dinghy in the Équihen-Plage area, in northern France, shortly after 9am on Wednesday.
Two people were rescued from the water, with one suffering from hypothermia while the other was in cardiac arrest.
The French NGO Utopia 56 posted on social media about that incident saying: “This morning a young man set sail in a makeshift boat hoping to reach the UK and claim asylum like hundreds of others. He did not survive. A new victim of this border and the deadly policies implemented.” Of the latest death the organisation said on X: “In two days to people died.”
The two deaths occurred after an eight-day gap in crossings between 11 and 18 March.
According to government data, on Wednesday 289 people crossed in five boats – an average of 57 people per boat.
The International Organisation for Migration recorded eight people dead or missing in the Channel between 1 January and 8 March this year. The latest deaths bring the toll so far this year to at least 10.
A Home Office spokesperson said the government will “stop at nothing” to dismantle business models of people-smuggling gangs who exploit vulnerable people.
“We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security,” they said.
Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director Steve Valdez-Symonds described the deaths in two days as “deeply shocking” as he called for ministers to engage with their French counterparts on people seeking asylum.
“The sovernment must finally confront the fact that years of simply trying to ‘smash gangs’ and ‘stop boats’ without taking some real share of responsibility for people who currently have no safer options is doing no good whatsoever,” he said.
“Failing or refusing to co-operate on sharing asylum duties is simply leaving criminal gangs to control and exploit the miserable, sometimes deadly, circumstances that refugees are being left to endure.”
