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Three people died and 102 were rescued after a small boat attempting to transport migrants across the English Channel came into difficulty on Monday, French authorities said.
Rescuers were dispatched to the scene after receiving a distress call from the vessel, which had reportedly set sail from Blériot beach in the Pas-de-Calais region on Monday morning, and attempted to assist 105 passengers on board, according to France’s Channel and North Sea Maritime Prefecture.
Three people – a 10-year-old child and two women – required urgent medical care and received immediate treatment but were later confirmed dead, the authority said.
The Pas-de-Calais Prefecture described the incident as a “shipwreck involving a taxi boat,” the AFP news agency reported.
François-Xavier Lauch, the prefect of the Pas-de-Calais region, said it appeared that people were being crushed on the boat while blaming smuggling networks for the incident.
“If there are deaths, it is because there are people profiting from these individuals’ desire to cross the border in exchange for money,” he told reporters.
“We’re doing everything we can to prevent these departures, of course, and to avoid this absolute human tragedy,” he said.
Small boat crossings from mainland Europe to the UK have become an increasingly prominent and polarising topic in British politics.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has accused the ruling Labour party of having “totally lost control of our borders,” while Labour says crossing figures have continued to come down in recent years.
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said earlier this month that crossings were down roughly 50% over the summer compared to six years ago.
Speaking to BBC South East last week, he added that his government would be “relentless” in working to bring a complete stop to small boats coming from Europe.
“We will not stop until we bear down on every element of this criminal activity in a way that gets the numbers right down,” he said.
Home Office figures show that 526 migrants arrived in the UK on seven boats on Sunday. A further 781 arrived on 10 boats on 23 September, per the department’s figures.