At least 6 people dead after migrant boat in English Channel capsizes
An overloaded boat carrying migrants capsized before dawn Saturday in the English Channel, killing at least six people and leaving more than 50 others to be rescued, according to French authorities.
About 65 people were estimated to have boarded the boat and two people may still be lost at sea, the Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea said.
When rescuers plucked people from the waters, six were initially in critical condition. One of those, who was flown by helicopter to a Calais hospital, was pronounced dead and the other five later perished and were ferried to shore.
“This morning, a migrant boat capsized off Calais,” French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on social media. “My thoughts are with the victims.”
The deaths come as Britain's ruling Conservative party has sought to stop crossings of small, often unseaworthy, boats with a variety of policies that have come under fire for failing to stem the flow of migrants.
French authorities noted a marked increase in attempted crossings from the coast since Thursday during the onset of milder weather. British authorities said 755 people crossed the channel in small boats Thursday, the highest daily number this year.
Small boat arrivals are down 15% from the number at this point last year. As of Thursday, 15,826 had been detected in the year to date, compared to 18,600 at this time last year.
Last year, five migrants died and four were reported missing while attempting to cross from the northern coast of France.
In November 2021, a boat carrying migrants sank, resulting in the deaths of 27 individuals.
U.K. Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who said on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that there had been a “tragic loss of life,” met Saturday with Border Force officials.
“This incident is sadly another reminder of the extreme dangers of crossing the Channel in small boats and how vital it is that we break the people smugglers' business model and stop the boats,” a spokesperson for Braverman said in a statement.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made “stop the boats” a rallying cry and a focus of his political platform but his efforts have faced setbacks.
The centerpiece of policies designed to deter people from risking their lives at sea is legislation that would deport refugees who arrive illegally back to their home country or a safe third country. But plans to fly people to Rwanda have been shot down by an appeals court and are now being appealed by the Supreme Court.
As Conservatives kicked off what they were calling “small boats week,” they hailed the first arrivals Monday of asylum seekers to be housed in what essentially was a floating dormitory moored off England's south coast.
The barge Bibby Stockholm, which had been used to house oil rig workers, was leased to save the 6 million pounds ($7.6 million) spent on hotels each day for some 51,000 asylum seekers.
It was outfitted to house 500 men, but on Friday, the initial 39 on board had to be evacuated when the deadly bacteria that causes legionnaires' disease was found in the water. The Home Office said no one onboard had become ill.