Children under 12 dead after migrant boat capsizes

A pregnant woman and several children are among 12 people who have died after a boat carrying dozens of migrants capsized in the Channel.

According to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, the dead, who are mainly women, also include several children. Two people are still missing.

The French coastguard said more than 50 people had been rescued at the Gris-Nez cape, near the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer. Two were said to be in critical condition.

According to Mr Darmanin, the boat was overloaded and fewer than eight people were wearing life jackets.

The disaster is the deadliest loss of life in the Channel this year.

The mayor of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Frédéric Cuvillier, told the BBC that a pregnant woman had died.

The city’s prosecutor, Guirec Le Bras, said the dead were “mainly of Eritrean origin” but that authorities “do not have consolidated details that would allow us to specify the exact nationalities”.

Before Tuesday’s incident, 30 people had died crossing the Channel in 2024, the highest number since 2021, when 45 deaths were recorded, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration.

Mr Darmanin said French authorities were preventing 60% of small boat departures. But people smugglers were cramming up to 70 people onto the same vessels that used to carry 30 to 40 people – leading to deadlier shipwrecks.

He urged the UK and EU to agree a “migration treaty” to curb small boat crossings.

British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper described the incident as “appalling and deeply tragic”.

“The gangs behind this appalling and unscrupulous trade in human lives are cramming more and more people into increasingly unseaworthy rowing boats and sending them out into the Channel even in very bad weather,” she said.

The effort to “dismantle these dangerous and criminal smuggling rings and strengthen border security is critical and must continue apace,” she added.

Steve Smith, CEO of Care4Calais, a charity set up to help migrants in Calais, said: “These tragedies are becoming much more common.”

“The question that must be asked of every political leader, on both sides of the Channel, is: ‘How many lives will be lost before these avoidable tragedies come to an end?’”

According to the French coast guard, helicopters, naval vessels and fishing boats were involved in the rescue operation.

The number of people making the dangerous Channel crossing in small boats has increased, with more than 135,000 people reaching the UK via this route since 2018.

This year more than 21,000 people crossed the Channel.

That is more than in the same period last year, but less than in 2022. The number of people crossing the border in 2022 – 45,755 – was the highest since the first figures were collected in 2018.

Both Labour and the previous Conservative government have pledged to tackle the problem.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has cancelled the previous Conservative government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, which was first announced in 2022 but never implemented.

Sir Keir has pledged to take tougher measures to “crush” the people smuggling gangs responsible.

Downing Street says it has already taken steps to tackle the criminal gangs by recruiting more officers to the National Crime Agency and setting up the government’s Border Security Command.

However, critics say the government must do more to provide safe routes for asylum seekers.

Amnesty International UK said on Tuesday: “No amount of ‘smash the gangs’ policing and no amount of government rhetoric can prevent these disasters from happening again and again if the needs of the people exploited by these gangs are not addressed.”