BOULOGNE-SUR-MER (AFP) – At least 12 migrants died off the northern French coast on Tuesday trying to cross the Channel to England in the deadliest such disaster this year, the French government said after a major rescue operation.
Announcing the death toll on X, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin also said that two migrants were still missing.
Several were injured after their boat carrying dozens ran into trouble off Wimereux, a town some five kilometres from Boulogne-sur-Mer on the French coast.
A source close to the investigation said the dead included three minors.
According to Boulogne-sur-Mer prosecutor Guirec Le Bras, the migrants who died were mostly from Eritrea. Ten of them were female and two male, he said. Half the total were minors.
Crew on a French government-operated ship, the Minck, were the first to become aware of the emergency and to respond, naval officer Etienne Baggio told AFP.
French navy helicopters, fishing boats and military vessels were mobilised for the operation, he said.
It was the deadliest such disaster this year which has already seen 25 people die in migrant crossings, up from 12 in 2023.
The French and British governments have for years sought to stop the flow of migrants, who pay smugglers thousands of euros per head for the passage to England from France aboard small boats.
United Kingdom Interior Minister Yvette Cooper called the deaths on Tuesday “horrifying and deeply tragic”.
She criticised the “gangs behind this appalling and callous trade in human lives”, adding they “do not care about anything but the profits they make”.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and France’s President Emmanuel Macron had earlier this summer pledged to strengthen “cooperation” in handling the surge in undocumented migrant numbers.
But on Monday alone, 351 migrants crossed in small boats, with 21,615 making the journey this year, according to UK government statistics.
The crossing often proves perilous, and in November 2021, 27 migrants died when their boat capsized in the deadliest single such disaster to date.
French authorities seek to stop migrants taking to the water but do not intervene once they are afloat except for rescue purposes, citing safety concerns.
Darmanin, who rushed to the site of the tragedy on Tuesday, told reporters that the European Union (EU) and Britain needed to negotiate a new treaty on migration.
The EU should seek to “re-establish a traditional migration relationship with our British friends and neighbours”, he said, adding that British payments to France to prevent irregular migration covered only “a third of what we are spending”.
