12 dead after migrant boat in English Channel capsizes

Darmanin is expected to travel to the site, near the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, late Tuesday.

About 70 people were onboard the boat, said Frédéric Cuvillier, the mayor of Boulogne-sur-Mer, as emergency services responded to the incident. It was the latest in a string of ill-fated crossing attempts in the Channel, which has long been a point of tension between British and French officials grappling with illegal migration.

Nationals of Afghanistan, Iran, Vietnam, Turkey and Syria made up more than half of those crossing the English Channel in small boats between June 2023 and June 2024, according to Britain’s Home Office. Human rights groups say that many of those who attempt the crossing are seeking asylum in the United Kingdom.

Britain’s Refugee Council, a charity that works with refugees, said it was “heartbroken” in a statement published Tuesday. It stressed an “urgent need for a comprehensive and multi-pronged approach to reduce dangerous Channel crossings.”

The council said that “heightened security and policing measures on the French coast” have led to “increasingly perilous crossings, launching from more dangerous locations and in flimsy, overcrowded vessels.” The charity called on the British government to take action against criminal gangs and deploy a plan to improve and expand safe routes for those seeking refuge.

About 29,000 people were detected crossing the English Channel in small boats in 2023, down from almost 46,000 in 2022, according to the Migration Observatory at Oxford University, which cited figures from the Home Office.

Wanda Wyporska, chief executive of the charity Safe Passage International, said on X that “without safe alternatives to reach protection in the UK, people fleeing war and persecution will continue to make dangerous journeys at the hands of smugglers as they have no other choice.”

Wyporska urged the government to make opening new safe routes a priority. “Far too many children, women and men have already lost their lives this year in terrifying ways across the Channel. Every one of them was preventable,” Safe Passage wrote.

British and French authorities have long grappled with how to tackle smuggling networks and illegal migration along the waterway. The French consider the crisis a shared European problem, as some of the migrants enter France from neighboring countries, The Post reported in 2021.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who came to power in July, has vowed to clamp down on the people-smuggling gangs responsible for the crossings.

Last month, the Home Office said Britain’s new Labour Party government was working to boost border security and to target criminals who are making millions in profit.

Steve Smith, CEO of refugee charity Care4Calais, condemned what he said was the “continued obsession” of officials with bolstering security measures along the Channel. Investing in such measures is not reducing the number of crossings but forcing people “to take ever-increasing risks,” he said.

“Every political leader, on both sides of our Channel, needs to be asked how many lives will be lost before they end these avoidable tragedies?” Smith said.