Eight migrants die in English Channel as tragedies mount

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Eight people have died trying to cross the Channel from France to England by boat, adding to an already high death toll in 2024 on the dangerous migration route and despite attempts to stop the dangerous journeys.

Another 51 people were rescued in the incident after their overcrowded dinghy was shipwrecked on rocks in the early hours of Sunday, just after it set off from the northern French coast, the prefect for the Pas-de-Calais region Jacques Billant said.

Only one in six people on the boat were wearing life jackets, and several people were later sent to hospital, including a 10-month-old baby with hypothermia.

The accident followed the deadliest incident so far this year, only two weeks ago, in which 12 people died, including 10 women — the worst single accident since 2021.

“The toll is terrible,” Billant told reporters of Sunday’s shipwreck, adding that local rescue services in northern France and police were under huge pressure this year because accidents were becoming deadlier as smugglers loaded people on to overcrowded and underinflated boats.

The death toll so far this year has reached 46, Billant said — which according to police and charities working in the area is the worst year since the crossings began in earnest in 2018, after security became tighter on other routes such as the Channel Tunnel.

“We observe that despite these terrible events, there are many migrants trying to attempt the crossings as soon as the weather is favourable,” said Billant.

The 10 victims on Sunday were men, he said, and came from Sudan, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Egypt and Iran.

Local rescuers in the Pas-de-Calais region said they had taken 200 people to safety overnight after several other boats attempted the crossing.
UK foreign secretary David Lammy said it was “awful” to see further loss of life in the Channel.

“I know that the prime minister [Sir Keir Starmer] will be in Italy tomorrow with [Italian] prime minister [Giorgia] Meloni discussing these issues and the work they’ve done, particularly with Albania,” Lammy said.

After the last bad accident in early September, France’s outgoing interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, had called for a new treaty to reset how Britain and the EU handle immigration and asylum claims and to create more legal entry routes to deter people from using dangerous alternatives.

France and Britain have worked together under successive leaders to try and stop the crossings, including by policing them more on the French coast with British help and financing.

But humanitarian groups on both sides of the Channel have said the crackdown has at best been ineffective as a deterrent, and at worst made the crossings more perilous as people smugglers rush people out in overcrowded boats as they try to avoid detection. 

“Effective and humane pathways for those seeking refuge is what will help undermine the smugglers’ business model because it will reduce the need for dangerous crossings, and prevent further tragedies,” Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said in a statement after Sunday’s accident.

Billant, the prefect, said 238 people traffickers had been arrested so far this year, a 15 per cent rise. “2024 has been very difficult,” he said, adding that several police had been injured in recent incidents in which traffickers and migrants had become violent with forces trying to patrol the area.

There has, however, been a 4 per cent decrease in people crossing the Channel in small boats this year compared with last — or 22,440 in the year to September 13, down from 23,382 in the same period last year.

One of Starmer’s first moves as prime minister was to scrap the former Conservative government’s contentious plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. 

He is instead seeking to massively accelerate the pace at which asylum decisions are made in the UK to reduce the number of people being housed in asylum hotels, as well as increase the number of unsuccessful asylum seekers being swiftly returned to their countries of origin.

Shadow home secretary James Cleverly, who is also one of four contenders to be the next leader of the Tory party, said Starmer’s decision to scrap the Rwanda scheme had sent the “wrong signal” to people smugglers and those hoping to make the journey across the channel.

“They came into government with no plan to stop the boats or smash the gangs,” he told the BBC.