Lille: Four migrants drowned overnight in the English Channel off France’s northern coast while trying to reach Britain, French maritime police said on Friday.
A navy patrol boat went to the site off Boulogne-sur-Mer after being alerted that several migrants had fallen into the sea, maritime police told AFP.
Four bodies were pulled from the water, but people were also rescued, police added.
The UK’s new home secretary, Yvette Cooper, described the deaths as “truly horrific”.
“Criminal gangs make huge profits from endangering lives,” she wrote on X.
Britain’s Labor government confirmed on Saturday it was scrapping a plan to deport migrants to Rwanda in a bid to reduce the number of illegal migrants arriving on the country’s shores.
Almost 500 migrants have arrived in Britain in small boats since Labour’s general election victory last Thursday, according to an AFP tally of official government figures.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged to tackle the problem by cracking down on smuggling gangs.
The latest deaths in the English Channel bring to 19 the number of people who have lost their lives this year trying to reach Britain from France on the often overcrowded boats.
A total of 12,313 people crossed the road this year, according to preliminary data from the Ministry of the Interior published in mid-June.
This number is up 18 percent from the equivalent point last year, when the number was 10,472.
