Four migrants, including a 2-year-old child, died on the night of Friday October 4 to Saturday October 5 while trying to reach the United Kingdom, Agence France-Presse learned from the Pas-de-Calais prefecture. and the Boulogne-sur-Mer public prosecutor’s office, Saturday. “Several migrants have again lost their lives while trying to reach Great Britain as part of a sea crossing of the Channel”the prefecture said in a press release.
Two separate boats are involved. In the morning, a canoe “overloaded”carrying nearly 90 people and suffering an engine failure, requested assistance. Fourteen people who were on board this boat were picked up by the ship, including a 2-year-old child found unresponsive, announced the prefect of Pas-de-Calais, Jacques Billant, on Saturday afternoon. According to the public prosecutor of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Guirec Le Bras, the first elements suggest that the child is dead ” crushed “ in the canoe. An injured teenager was hospitalized in Boulogne. The other passengers in the boat continued their journey towards the United Kingdom.
On a second boat, also overloaded, “several engine failures generated panic movements”, off the coast of Calais, and migrants fell into the sea but were able to be rescued, said the prefect. Three people, two men and a woman around 30 years old, were then discovered unconscious at the bottom of the boat, “probably crushed, suffocated and drowned during the stampedes, in the 40 centimeters of water present at the bottom of the inflatable boat”according to the prefect’s account.
“A terrible drama which must make us all aware of the tragedy that is playing out. The smugglers have the blood of these people on their hands and our government will intensify the fight against these mafias who enrich themselves by organizing these death crossings.”wrote the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, on X.
Since the start of the “small boat” phenomenon, the year 2024 is the deadliest
Since January, more than 25,000 migrants have arrived on British shores after crossing the Channel aboard makeshift boats, a figure up 4% according to data from the British Home Office published on September 23.
A series of shipwrecks made 2024 the deadliest year since the phenomenon of crossings aboard makeshift inflatable boats (called small boats), in response to the increasingly strong locking of access to the Channel Tunnel and the port of Calais.
Before Saturday’s events, at least forty-six exiles had already died in 2024 during these attempts by sea, compared to twelve in 2023. On the night of September 14 to 15, eight migrants died in the sinking of a boat which had just left the French coast, carrying around sixty passengers. On September 3, at least twelve others died when their boat broke apart off Cape Gris-Nez in the worst shipwreck of 2024 to date.
Migrants have also died crushed or trampled during crossing attempts this year, such as Dina Al-Shammari, a 21-year-old Kuwaiti woman, who died on July 28, crushed in an overloaded canoe.
Elected in July, British Prime Minister and Labor Party leader Keir Starmer promised to tackle illegal immigration by increasing the number of migrant deportations and cracking down on people smugglers. According to the British authorities, the makeshift boats are increasingly loaded, with fifty-two passengers on average compared to only thirteen in 2020. Between June 2023 and June 2024, 18% of the people arriving by these boats were from Afghanistan, a figure in sharp decline, followed by Iran (13%) and Vietnam (10%).