Four migrants have drowned in the English Channel last night, French maritime police have reported.
They drowned off Boulogne-sur-Mer on France’s northern coast while trying to cross to the UK when their boat capsized or deflated.
Maritime police told AFP that a navy patrol boat went to the site after being alerted and that four people picked out of the water by helicopter were dead.
Others, however, were rescued alive, the police said.
Officials said the helicopter arrived around 30 minutes after the initial alert at 04:30 local time, when found several people “drifting in the water while others were still clinging to the broken rubber dingy”.
Reuters cited a French coast guard spokesperson as saying that a total of 67 people were aboard the boat and that 63 of them were rescued by an operation involving four ships and one helicopter.
The UK’s new Labour government has said that it intends to tackle the small boat crisis, and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said she would appoint a leader of the UK’s new Border Security Command within weeks.
Migrants tend to come towards Britain via flimsy, overloaded dinghies, which are often torn apart by aggressives waves.
