Four people have died in small boat incidents off France – unconfirmed reports

An unconfirmed number of people have died after two small boat incidents off France, including a child who was “trampled to death”.

French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau posted on X that “several people had died.”

Local newspaper La Voix Du Nord reported that three people died off Calais and one near Boulogne while rescue operations were still underway.

Mr Retailleau wrote: “Today several people died trying to cross the English Channel. A child was trampled to death in a boat.

“A terrible tragedy that must alert us all to the tragedy that is unfolding.

“The people smugglers have the blood of these people on their hands and our government will step up the fight against these mafias who get rich by organizing these death crossings.”

According to France24, the child, believed to be around four years old, was found in a boat rather than in the water, and another migrant was injured and flown to a hospital in Boulogne.

The news site quotes officials as saying that a French tugboat, the Abeille Normandie, picked up 14 people and took them to the commercial port of Boulogne.

It adds that the incident was not a shipwreck and the boat and its other occupants continued their journey across the English Channel.

The deadly incident came after the Home Office confirmed that 395 migrants arriving in the UK had crossed the English Channel on Friday, the first arrivals in five days.

The latest arrivals, who arrived in seven boats, bring the total for the year to 25,639.

This compares to 25,330 at the same time last year and 33,611 in 2022.

Some of those who arrived on Friday wore life jackets as they were taken to the Dover coast on a Border Force ship.

The arrivals came on the same day that the UK and other G7 countries agreed an anti-smuggling action plan designed to strengthen cooperation on the issue following talks in Italy.

The Interior Ministry said this includes joint investigations and sharing information to combat criminal smuggling routes.

The action plan also outlines “collaboration” with social media companies to monitor the internet and various platforms to prevent them from being used for migrant smuggling and human trafficking.

This includes calling on social media companies to “do more to respond to online content that promotes migrant smuggling services”.

A Home Office spokesman said: “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings that endanger lives and undermine our border security.”

“As we have seen in so many recent devastating tragedies in the English Channel, people smuggling gangs do not care whether the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay. We will stop at nothing to destroy their business models and bring them to justice.

“We are making progress and increasing our headcount in the UK and abroad. Our new Border Patrol Command will strengthen our global partnerships and increase our efforts to investigate, arrest and prosecute these evil criminals.”