A child is feared missing at sea as at least three migrants died while attempting to cross the Channel to the UK in an overloaded boat, officials have said.
A large-scale rescue operation was launched on a beach in Sangatte, in northern France, after the first alert was raised at about 6.15am.
Firefighters and law enforcement officers were deployed in vast numbers this Sunday morning at the Tom Souville base.
Authorities have warned the death toll may rise, as investigations are carried out by prosecutors in Boulogne-sur-Mer and judicial police tried to locate those who provided the boats.
About 50 migrants have been taken into the care of French humanitarian charity Utopia 56, and ten people with severe hypothermia are being cared for by firefighters. Four individuals were taken to hospital.
Three unconscious people were pulled from the water but could not be revived, despite efforts by medical teams.
Many survivors reported seeing a child falling in to the sea, and there was no sign of the missing person by Sunday evening.
Célestin Pichaud, coordinator of the Utopia 56 refugee charity, said: ‘People on site immediately told us that a child had fallen into the water, but we had no information about a child being found.’
A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, from a Border Force vessel following a small boat incident in the Channel, on December 29, 2024
Around 50 migrants have been taken into the care of French humanitarian charity Utopia 56, and ten people with severe hypothermia are being cared for by firefighters, BFM TV reported
A French Navy helicopter was part of the rescue mission being carried out at the beach near Calais, with emergency workers positioned opposite the Fort Lapin campsite in the coastal commune.
A France Bleu report, citing the Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea, stated too many people had attempted to climb into the small boat this morning, in what was described as a ‘chaotic boarding’.
Several migrants suffered hypothermia in the extremely cold water while others didn’t have life jackets and were unable to stay afloat.
Two British Border Force vessels could also be seen mid-Channel, according to the Marine Traffic shipping website.
The Typhoon and Volunteer ships as well as the Tacu – which retrieves migrant dinghies once people have been taken on board the catamarans – were in British waters in the middle of the Dover Straits.
Charity worker Flore Judet said: ‘A boat was supposed to set off with sixty people on board, but a group of fifty additional people tried to get on the boat.
‘This created extreme panic, causing many to end up in the water.’
Jacques Billant, the prefect of Pas-de-Calais, said an overcrowded boat may have contributed to the tragedy.
He told a news conference today: ‘There were more people attempting to board than the boat could hold.’
Britain’s border security and asylum minister Angela Eagle said the boats were operated by smugglers the government has vowed to stop.
Migrants board a smuggler’s inflatable dinghy in an attempt to cross the English Channel, on Bleriot beach in Sangatte, near Calais, northern France on October 30, 2024. File photo
Migrants are brought to the Port of Dover in a lifeboat following a small boat incident on Sunday
Life jackets, buoys and an deflated inflatable boat are seen, as a P&O Ferry sails in the background, after a failed attempt by migrants to illegally cross the English Channel to reach Britain, on the beach of Sangatte, near Calais, northern France, on December 4, 2024. File photo
She said: ‘This morning, lives have been lost at sea because ruthless criminals running the small boat trade are overloading people into unseaworthy vessels. This government is committed to smashing these gangs.’
Two unidentified migrants were known to have died soon after 6am, while a third body was found in the sea at 10am.
None of the dead have yet been identified, and it is not known whether they drowned, or were suffocated on the packed boat.
The stricken boat – a flimsy rubber dinghy – appeared to be designed for around 12 people maximum, said the same source.
The latest arrivals follow crossings made on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and December 27 – the first time small boats have made the journey on all of those dates since 2018.
Official Government figures show 305 people arrived in the UK via small boat on Friday, bringing the total for the week to 1,163.
The 407 arrivals on December 26 meant more than 150,000 people had made the crossing from France since records began on January 1, 2018, prompting a political blame game over responsibility for the numbers.
Of these, 36,204 have arrived since the start of 2024, provisional Home Office figures have revealed.
This is up 23 per cent from this time last year, but down 21 per cent from 2022.
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said of the earlier tragedies: ‘Our government will intensify the fight against these mafias who are getting rich by organising these crossings of death.’
Prior to the election, crossings in 2024 were up 19 per cent compared to the same period in 2023.
But more than 60 people are known to have died this year – the deadliest year on record.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has acknowledged that it would be ‘no comfort’ to the public if numbers continued to remain at high levels.
A Home Office source sought to blame the previous government, saying they had left ‘an appalling legacy of broken border security’, while Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp blamed Labour’s decision to scrap the Tories’ Rwanda scheme.
After Saturday’s update to the figures, Mr Philp said the numbers represented ‘Labour’s appalling failure’ and were ‘an insult to the British people’.
He said: ‘In 2023, Conservatives cut the numbers crossing the channel by a third. But now, it’s all moving the other way.
‘These rising numbers are the predictable outcome of Starmer scrapping many Conservative measures to tackle this issue, like scrapping the Rwanda deterrent before it even started.
‘We know from the experience in Australia that a deterrent would have stopped the boats if it had been allowed to start as planned in late July.
‘The British people deserve better than a Government that can’t, or won’t, deal with illegal channel crossings.’
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has put international co-operation with law enforcement agencies in Europe at the heart of his bid to cut the number of arrivals, having promised to ‘smash the gangs’ smuggling people across the Channel during this year’s election.
A Home Office spokesperson said: ‘We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.
‘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.’
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