On Sunday, a 7-year-old girl drowned when an illegal migrant boat capsized while crossing the English Channel from the coast of France, making it the third fatal accident this year.
The Dunkirk public prosecutor’s office said a migrant boat carrying 16 illegal immigrants, including 10 children aged between 7 and 13, capsized in the Ar Canal on Sunday while attempting to reach the English Channel.
Authorities said the ship “was not large enough to carry that many people” and capsized about 30 kilometers off the coast of France, throwing all passengers into the frigid sea. Tragically, a 7-year-old girl suffered cardiopulmonary arrest and drowned during the incident.
A further 10 people, including six children, were taken to hospital. le figaro report.
Prosecutors announced that they had opened multiple police investigations into the smugglers, charging them with “culpable homicide,” “culpable injury,” “criminal association,” and “aiding and abetting gang entry and illegal stay.”
It is believed that the boat capsized far offshore, likely as a result of the migrants moving their starting point to avoid detection from police patrols.
More than 2,500 migrants drowned or went missing in Mediterranean Sea this year, UN reportshttps://t.co/FyDDF8Hojt
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 1, 2023
The death of a seven-year-old girl is the third fatal accident in the English Channel this year. Earlier this week, a 22-year-old Turkish man died after falling from a boat off the coast of Calais, and two other migrants went missing.
On Saturday, a suspected smuggler from the African country of Eritrea was charged in connection with the incident, including manslaughter. Two additional Eritrean nationals were arrested but later released.
In January, five Syrian migrants, including a 14-year-old, drowned off the coast of Wimeroo in the Calais region while trying to swim out to a boat that had already sailed into the strait, where the water was around 9 degrees Celsius (48 degrees Celsius). Fahrenheit).
Last year, at least 12 migrants lost their lives trying to reach the UK in brutal people smuggling, of which 29,437 illegal immigrants successfully landed in the UK.
Report: Illegal boat migrants sign slave labor ‘agreement’ with human traffickers to reach UK https://t.co/XwrAXiDP8m
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) September 21, 2020
