Five migrants died and a sixth was in critical condition while trying to reach Britain from subzero temperatures in northern France on Sunday, French maritime authorities said.
The Marine Prefecture said in a statement that more than 30 people had been rescued.
The death was the first migrant death reported in the Strait in 2024.
Officials said four migrants died overnight, and the body of a fifth was later found on the beach.
According to the Maritime Prefecture, the group was trying to reach the vessel off the coast of the resort town of Wimeroo, but the small boat became stuck at around 2 a.m. (1 a.m. Japan time).
The crew of the French towing vessel Abeille Normandie went to the rescue and found “unconscious and lifeless people” in the water, officials said, estimating the water temperature to be 9 degrees Celsius.
An AFP reporter saw clothes and shoes abandoned by migrants along the Wimeroo embankment.
Survivors were taken to a shelter in Calais.
“The whole family”
According to the Marine Prefecture, more than 30 people were rescued, but one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said about 70 migrants were brought in around 3 a.m., including “a family with children.” All of them, some of them very young,” he said.
“Some survivors told us that they did not want to stay there, but instead wanted to go to Dunkirk station to go to the accommodation center in Armentières,” the official added.
The Boulogne-sur-Mer public prosecutor's office told AFP that authorities had opened an investigation into “aggravated manslaughter” and other crimes.
An autopsy revealed the cause of death was likely “drowning” or “thermal shock,” prosecutors said.
Jean-Claude Renoir, president of the Salam Association, said migrants were taking great risks by attempting to board larger ships at sea in the current situation.
“Migrants want to participate at all costs,” he told AFP. “They quickly fall victim to hypothermia and drowning.”
According to the Marine Prefecture, 12 migrants lost their lives trying to cross the strait in 2023.
The area around Calais, the starting point for the shortest crossing into England, has long been a magnet for immigrants.
More than 20 years after the Red Cross center in Sangatte closed, hundreds of people are still living in tents and makeshift shelters near Calais and Dunkirk, hoping for a chance to cross under the cover of trucks and small boats. .
Boating is a political priority for the British government and a point of contention with France, as tens of thousands of people make the dangerous voyage each year.
“Human sales”
The British government is moving forward with plans to deport migrants who entered the UK illegally to Rwanda.
“It's heartbreaking, but it just goes to show that we have to stop the boats and we have to stop this illegal human trafficking,” British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said recently. He spoke to the BBC, touching on the tragedy.
“The only way to stop the ship is to destroy the smugglers' models.”
Labor opposition leader Keir Starmer, who is favorite to become prime minister later this year, said: “It would be a terrible thing to lose your life in a small dinghy or boat in the Channel in winter.” .
But he denounced the Rwanda plan as a “gift” and said authorities must track people smuggled into the country.
“I refuse to accept that these gangs are somehow untouchable and there is nothing we can do about it,” he told the BBC.
Nearly 30,000 migrants crossed the English Channel in small boats from mainland Europe in 2023, according to London, a drop of more than a third on the year.
Afghans, Iranians, Turks, Eritreans, and Iraqis make up the majority of immigrants.
