Two people have died attempting to cross the Channel in a dinghy, according to the French authorities, bringing the death toll since mid-July to at least nine.
The maritime prefecture for the Channel in Calais issued a brief statement confirming the deaths and have said Jacques Billant, the prefect of Pas-de-Calais, was going to the scene to supervise the rescue operations.
About 50 people were rescued with a helicopter and several ships sent to the scene, but two people were declared dead.
The most recent death before Sunday morning was on 28 July and involved a woman believed to have suffocated in a dinghy.
While the circumstances of Sunday’s deaths are not yet known, organisations such as Utopia 56, which supports displaced and homeless people in France, and Alarm Phone, which monitors the Channel and the Mediterranean and passes on distress calls to the coastguard, have blamed the increase in deaths on the UK’s crackdown on small boats.
An Alarm Phone spokesperson told the Guardian last week: “We believe that at least 62 people have died at the UK border since March 2023, when the UK and France signed their latest deal to ‘stop the boats’.
“Of those, 39 people died in sea-crossing related incidents and eight of those were crushed to death in the dinghy. Are these numbers within the acceptable limits for the UK and French governments?”
The number of dinghies available has decreased after attempts by the UK and others to disrupt the supply chain in countries where they are sourced. NGOs say this has led to a larger number of people frantically rushing to board the dinghies that are available. French police sometimes slash the boats with knives, rendering them useless.
The government publishes daily figures for small-boat Channel crossings with the total number crossing and the number of boats they crossed in. The average number in each boat has risen from 20-30 in each boat in 2018 to 60-70, with recent reports of more than 100 people crammed into some vessels.
Britain is funding more French policing on the beaches to try to stop dinghies departing from France. In March 2023, £478m was given for 500 extra officers, a new detention centre and other measures to stop people getting into dinghies to cross the Channel.
