Toddler among four migrants who died during the last crossing of the Channel

A two-year-old boy and three adults died overnight after two boats full of migrants ran into trouble while attempting to cross the Channel from France to England, French officials said Saturday.

The latest tragedies have brought the number of migrants who have died this year trying to reach England from France to 51, according to Jacques Billant, the French prefect for the Pas-de-Calais region.

In one incident, a child was found unconscious in an overloaded dinghy when migrants called for help on Saturday morning.

The boat, with almost 90 people on board, had suffered an engine failure off the coast of Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France. The boy could not be saved, officials said.

Boulogne-sur-Mer prosecutor Guirec Le Bras said the child, born in Germany to a Somali mother, had been crushed to death.

Fourteen other migrants were detained by French officials, including a 17-year-old teenager who was hospitalized with burns to his legs, officials said.

The remaining passengers continued their journey. While French officials try to prevent migrants from launching their boats, they say for safety reasons they do not intervene once they are at sea, except for rescues.

In the second incident, another boat overcrowded with migrants suffered an engine failure off the coast of Calais. In the ensuing panic, several people fell overboard and had to be rescued.

But rescue teams found the bodies of two men and a woman, about 30 years old, in the bottom of the boat, Billant said.

The three were “probably crushed, suffocated and drowned” in the water at the bottom of the boat, he added. One of the adult victims was Vietnamese, and the other two were of “African descent,” prosecutors said.

Human traffickers have filed a report

“This new drama shows the need to fight ruthlessly against the networks of human traffickers that exploit human suffering,” French Prime Minister Michel Barnier wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau also condemned the human traffickers.

“The smugglers have the blood of these people on their hands and our government will intensify the fight against these gangs who enrich themselves by organizing these deadly crossings.”

British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper made a similar comment in a post on X.

“It is devastating that more lives have been lost in the Channel today, including a young child, as criminal smuggling gangs continue to organize these dangerous boat crossings,” she wrote.

“The gangs don’t care whether people live or die – this is a terrible trade in lives.”

Billant said the inflatable boats used by migrants were of poor quality as there were not enough life jackets for everyone on board.

Traffickers did not hesitate to separate young children from their parents, he added.

The number of Channel crossings into Britain by undocumented asylum seekers has increased dramatically since 2018, despite repeated warnings about the dangerous journey. The Channel has heavy maritime traffic, icy waters and strong currents.

‘Misery and despair’

The French and British governments have tried to stem the flow of undocumented migrants, who can pay smugglers thousands of euros per head to cross to England from France aboard small boats.

The good weather has accelerated the channel crossings since Thursday. Since Thursday evening, police have prevented 31 crossing attempts, French authorities said. On Saturday, 237 people were rescued.

In a commentary broadcast on Saturday, President Emmanuel Macron said: “The difficulty right now is how we manage to fight human traffickers, these illegal immigration networks.”

But immigration itself was not necessarily a “bad” thing, he added.

The charity Utopia 56, which helps migrants, said authorities must change course.

“To put an end to these tragedies, the state’s actions must change, by carrying out a humanitarian rescue operation at sea, accompanied by a policy of reception in France and safe passage to England,” the group said.