A dying woman was among 34 people rescued from an overcrowded migrant boat in the English Channel today – before it continued its voyage to Britain.
The tragedy unfolded after desperate passengers on the inflatable dinghy called emergency services at around 5am this morning.
There were around 75 aboard the ‘very crowded’ migrant boat off the coast of Calais with around half of the boat
‘Rescuers saw an unconscious woman on board,’ said a spokesman for the French emergency services. ‘She was rapidly taken off and given first aid treatment, but she died on her way to hospital.’
The woman – who has not been identified – was the seventh person to have died in such circumstances in July alone.
File photo of migrants crossing the Channel
File photo of Border Force attending a small boat incident in the Channel
An emergency source said: ‘She was nowhere near the water, but succumbed to being crushed by the amount of people around her.
‘Migrants are drowning in the water, but the new phenomenon of people dying inside the boats is becoming very serious indeed.’
The Maritime Prefecture said the boat requested assistance off the coast of Calais.
The patrol boat Armoise, of the Maritime Gendarmerie, and French Customs Coast Guard boat Kermorvan attended the scene at around 5.30am.
‘It was during the transfer of those who wanted to get off the boat that the rescue services noticed that there was an unconscious person on board,’ said a spokesman.
The victim was airlifted to hospital in Boulogne-sur-Mer, but ‘she was unfortunately declared dead’.
The spokesman added: ‘Several people still on board the boat refused assistance.
‘Given the risks of falling overboard or injury to people in the event of forced intervention, the decision was made to let the other people on this boat continue on their journey to England’.
The year to date has been the busiest for crossings so far, with 14,759 migrants arriving between January 1 and July 16 – the most recent date for which figures are available. This compares to 14,622 in 2022, the second busiest year
The dinghy was in the sea off the northern French port of Calais when it was reported overnight to the regional surveillance and rescue centre (CROSS).
The centre dispatched a police vessel and a border guard patrol boat to the area at around 5:30 am after ‘some of the people aboard called for help’.
Today’s death marks the sixth asylum seeker to have died in the Channel between July 12 and 19 in three separate boat disasters.
On July 12, four migrants drowned overnight after being carried on a packed boat of 67 migrants off the coast of Boulonge sur Mer, also in northern France.
Those who died were not wearing lifejackets when they died which sparked a police investigation into the people smugglers who were charging around £1,000 per person.
Instead of life jackets, each was given a poorly inflated inner tube to hang on to in case of difficulty.
French cops wearing riot gear pictured watching on as the migrants launched into the Channel on their overpacked inflatable boat on July 11, 2024
Days later on July 19, a female migrant died after the overcrowded vessel she was on deflated and sank.
She was reportedly of Sudanese origin and was among 86 people who set off from a beach near Calais.
The latest death today means that 23 people have died this year alone while trying to reach the coast of England to claim asylum.
A source who works closely with the Border Force previously said that weather is a ‘major factor’ in the number of people crossing the Channel each day.
Dr Peter William Walsh, Senior Researcher at the Migration Observatory, added: ‘There definitely seems to be a seasonal factor, with the second half the year typically having more arrivals than the first half.
‘The weather is calmer with warmer temperatures and less swell, but even the causes of this seasonal effect are not totally clear.’
Last year, there were 67,337 asylum applications to the UK, and 29,437 of them came from people who arrived in small boats.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has scrapped a scheme to deport migrants arriving in Britain to Rwanda.
Instead, he is trying to work with other countries to prevent people making the journeys in the first place.
Sir Keith has announced an £84m package of aid funding for African and Middle Eastern countries to tackle migration ‘at source’.
