A two-year-old boy was ‘trampled to death’ on an overcrowded boat off the coast of France whilst attempting to cross the English Channel on Saturday, the Prefect of Pas-de-Calais region has confirmed.
A woman and two men, all believed to be around 30 years old, also died today while crossing the Channel in a separate incident.
In a news conference, the prefect of the Pas-de-Calais, Jacques Billant, said rescuers found the two-year-old child dead onboard a migrant boat that had called for assistance Saturday morning.
Fourteen other migrants picked up on board the rescue boat were brought back to France to be interviewed by the border police and a 17-year-old was taken to a hospital in the port city of Boulogne-sur-Mer after suffering from burns to his legs.
Other people on the migrant boat who refused to be rescued continued their journey toward Britain, he said.
Boulogne-sur-Mer prosecutor Guirec Le Bras, said the child, who appears to have been crushed in a jostling on the boat, was born in Germany from a 24-year-old Somalian mother.
In a separate incident, Billant said rescuers found the three migrants in the bottom of a boat and saved several others that fell overboard.
It is believed engine failures caused panic among the 83 passengers crammed onto the small boat, which resulted in a deadly stampede.
Posting on X about the ‘terrible tragedy’, French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said that ‘the smugglers have the blood of these people on their hands’.
He added that his newly-appointed government will ‘intensify the fight against these mafias who make money from these deadly crossings.’
France’s prime minister Michel Barnier said the country needs a stricter immigration policy, claiming he would be ‘ruthless’ with people traffickers who profit from human misery.
Writing on X, UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper described the deaths as appalling’ and said criminal gangs ‘do not care if people live or die – this is a terrible trade in lives’.
Saturday’s deaths come as a series of shipwrecks made 2024 the deadliest in recent years on the English Channel.
Last month, 12 people died after a boat carruing migrants ripped apart while crossing from France to Britain.
About two weeks later, eight migrants died in a similar crossing attempt.
It also comes after the Home Office confirmed that 395 migrants arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel on Friday.
The latest arrivals, who had travelled in seven boats, bring the total for the year to 25,639.
This compares to 25,330 by the same date last year and 33,611 in 2022.
Some of those arriving on Friday were pictured wearing life jackets as they were brought to shore at Dover on a Border Force vessel.
The arrivals came on the same day as the UK and other G7 nations agreed an anti-smuggling action plan designed to boost co-operation on the issue following talks in Italy.
The Home Office said this includes joint investigations and intelligence-sharing in a bid to target criminal smuggling routes.
The action plan also details ‘working collaboratively’ with social media companies to monitor the internet and different platforms to prevent them being used to enable migrant smuggling and people trafficking.
This includes calling on social media companies ‘to do more to respond to online content that advertises migrant smuggling services’.
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.
‘As we have seen with so many recent devastating tragedies in the Channel, the people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay. We will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.
‘We are making progress, bolstering our personnel numbers in the UK and abroad. Our new Border Security Command will strengthen our global partnerships and enhance our efforts to investigate, arrest and prosecute these evil criminals.’