Two migrants have died in attempts to cross the treacherous waters of the English Channel from France to Britain over the past two days, the French maritime authorities said Thursday. They were the seventh and eighth migrant deaths at sea counted by French authorities in the channel this year.
One person was among 15 people who were rescued from an overloaded boat or picked up in the waters off the northern coast of France between the ports of Calais and Dunkirk before dawn on Thursday, the authorities said in a statement.
The boat initially set off with about 40 people aboard and then came back to shore about three hours later to pick up even more people, the statement said. It said the person who died was found unconscious and could not be revived by a medical team.
After the rescue, the boat continued on its way in the direction of the United Kingdom, about 80 people on board, the statement said.
In the second incident, another inflatable boat ran into trouble in the channel the previous day, on Wednesday morning, according to an earlier statement from the French maritime authorities. Two people were plucked from the sea but one of them wasn't breathing and was later declared dead, the statement said.
Europe’s increasingly strict asylum rules, growing xenophobia and hostile treatment of migrants are pushing many migrants north. While the U.K. government has been hostile, too, many migrants have family or friends in the U.K. and a perception they will have more opportunities there.
