French police have cleared a camp believed to have been used by some of the dozen people, including six children, who died after their dinghy ripped apart in the Channel.
In the early hours of Wednesday, belongings and tents were removed and tens of people were bussed away from an unofficial refugee settlement near Calais known locally as the “BMX site”.
Six children and a pregnant woman were among 12 people who died on Tuesday morning three miles off Cap Gris-Nez, south of Calais, when a flimsy dinghy in which 65 people were being transported collapsed in the water. Of the dead, 10 were female.
It has emerged that moments before the collapse of the dinghy, 15 people had been safely moved on to a rescue boat after calling for help, but that the majority had chosen to go on.
French prosecutors have said that many of those caught up in the tragedy originated from the north-east African state of Eritrea, which is one of the poorest countries in the world.
The French government has a “no fixation” policy that is designed to deter people seeking to cross to the UK from living in camps by the coast, and diggers and riot police were mobilised early on Wednesday morning to clear a site where Eritreans had been staying.
Charities working with migrants in northern France said that those who had lost possessions in the clearout included survivors of Tuesday’s sinking, although this could not be independently verified.
Despite the latest loss of life in the Channel, dozens more people could be seen risking their lives on Wednesday, including on a heavily laden vessel that set off from nearby Wimereux under the watch of patrol boats.
The dinghy was so overcrowded that the legs of some of those onboard could be seen to be dragging through the water. A young girl grasping a mobile phone and not wearing a lifejacket was among those onboard. Asked why it did not intervene, the French maritime agency said it would be dangerous to force such vessels back to shore.
A spokesperson said: “It’s difficult to achieve with more than 50 people onboard who are vehemently refusing to be rescued. The main risk is a stampede onboard and then a capsizing, these boats being neither stable nor reliable.
“The risk of loss of human life being too high for an intervention under duress, the choice is made to prioritise the protection of the people onboard, and by simply monitoring from a distance the navigation capabilities of these boats. It is therefore more a question of ethics than of blind application of the law.”
Later on Wednesday about 100 people were seen disembarking at the port of Dover after three dinghies were intercepted by the UK Border Force vessels Typhoon and Defender.
Jean-Luc Dubaële, the mayor of Wimereux, told the AP news agency that the British and French authorities could no longer let the situation continue.
He said: “Unfortunately, every day is like this for us. The smugglers – a criminal network – continue with insistence to send people to their deaths in the Channel. It really is unacceptable, scandalous. And it is high time that a lasting solution is found with Britain.”
The decision to deploy diggers to remove the settlement used by the people from Eritrea and to bus some of those found there to the north-east of France was condemned by local charities, which claimed that the authorities were only further endangering lives.
Flore Judet, from the group Auberge des Migrants, told the Guardian: “Today’s eviction was really violent. We feel so much sadness and anger about the deaths yesterday. We have seen months and years of repression set up by the French police and paid for by the UK. Yesterday, 12 people lost their lives because they wanted to run away from this violent place.”
Keir Starmer’s new government has said it intends to “smash the gangs” behind the crossings, but the difficulties faced by UK law enforcement were highlighted at Sevenoaks youth court on Wednesday when the Crown Prosecution Service had to drop its cases against two young men charged with an immigration offence during a Channel crossing in April when five people, including a seven-year-old girl, died.
The charges of attempting to enter the UK illegally were discontinued after months of delay because of age assessments. The National Crime Agency (NCA) had described the youths as being in their 20s when it first arrested and charged them, but this was disputed. Court documents for Wednesday’s hearing showed the boys, from South Sudan and Sudan, listed as 15 and 16 years old.
