A 40-year-old man died on Sunday trying to cross the Channel from northern France to the UK.
According to the prefecture in Calais, the man was of Indian heritage and had a cardiac arrest after the boat he was in with about 50 other men, women and children deflated minutes after leaving the French shore.
Everyone swam back to the shore but he collapsed and resuscitation attempts by emergency services on the beach failed to revive him.
The incident happened at about 5.30am local time (0430 GMT) off the coast of the town of Tardinghen.
It brings the death toll this year among people crossing the Channel to 57, the deadliest year so far for Channel crossings. However, this does not seem to have deterred people from attempting the journey.
As of Saturday the number of people who have crossed the Channel in small boats so far this year has exceeded the total who arrived in the whole of 2023, according to figures published by the Home Office.
So far this year 29,642 people have made the trip, compared with 29,437 last year. It is unlikely that the 2022 total of 45,755 people who arrived in small boats will be exceeded by the end of December 2024. On Saturday 64 people crossed the Channel in one boat.
A statement from the Calais prefecture said: “Since [last] Monday evening and the return of favourable weather conditions, the pressure has been intense on the coastline and many migrants are trying to take to the sea.”
French officials said 57 events had been recorded since Monday, including 32 attempts intercepted by the police.
They added that earlier on Sunday several attempts were prevented by the police and gendarmes, including in Équihen-Plage, Calais and Sangatte.
They said the dinghy involved in the incident in which the man died was in very poor condition and deflated immediately after its departure. The people onboard found themselves in the water and swam back to the beach. Not all had lifejackets.
An investigation has been launched by the public prosecutor of Boulogne-sur-Mer.
Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “This is yet another tragic and preventable loss of life in the Channel, with deaths now becoming shockingly frequent. We must not accept the frequency and scale of these tragedies as inevitable by becoming immune to them.
“Each death is a reminder that those making these perilous journeys are desperate men, women and children, who are our fellow human beings, having to flee from terror, war and oppression in search of safety.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “This devastating tragedy is a further reminder that the people-smuggling gangs only care about the profits they make, not about the lives they put at risk.
“We will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.
“Our new border security command will strengthen our global partnerships and enhance our efforts to investigate, arrest, and prosecute these evil criminals.”
