Five migrants die while attempting to cross Channel to UK

Five migrants have died while attempting to cross the English Channel to the UK from France.

A migrant boat was reported to be in difficulty near Wimereux beach, Pas-de-Calais, at around 1.45am local time (12.45am UK time) on Sunday, France's Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea said.

"When a boat left the beach, people found themselves in difficulty at sea to reach the boat", local media reported, citing the maritime prefecture.

Something must have gone wrong immediately - eyewitness

The migrants were trying to reach a boat in freezing water in an effort to cross the Channel in the dark of night, a spokeswoman from the maritime prefecture told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The prefecture said five people have been confirmed dead while one person remains in critical condition in hospital in Boulogne and another has severe hypothermia and was treated at the scene.

It was initially reported that four people had died trying to reach a boat in the water.

The fifth fatality was confirmed later after a person was found at the edge of Wimereux beach at around 8.45am local time (7.45am UK time) and could not be resuscitated, the prefecture said.

It comes as UK government figures show 124 migrants were detected crossing the Channel to the UK in three boats on Saturday.

The migrants from the incident off the coast of Wimereux are not included in that figure.

French paper La Voix du Nord said 72 people, including 10 children, were rescued and taken to Calais after the boat was spotted off the French coast in the early hours of Sunday morning.

An intervention boat "which was on patrol in the area launched its boat to rescue the shipwrecked people" before the crew "identified inanimate and unconscious people in the water", the spokeswoman from the maritime prefecture told AFP.

A French navy helicopter, police and 50 firefighters were involved in the rescue operation.

Sky's Europe correspondent Adam Parsons has been at the stretch of coast where the incident took place.

He said: "This tragedy happened not very far at all from the French coast. This isn't one that happened miles out to sea.

"Our understanding is that this boat got into difficulty in relatively shallow waters and that people jumped off trying to get back to shore, and then landed in that freezing water.

"The water temperature is about nine degrees Celsius, people may have had their possessions, wearing clothing, going in there and getting weighed down, I don't think it would take very long before hypothermia would set in."

The UK Coastguard could not comment because the incident took place in French territorial waters.

The Home Office said in a statement: "Earlier today, the French authorities responded to an incident in the Channel which resulted in the loss of five lives.

"These deaths are devastating and our thoughts are with the victims' families and friends.

"This is another reminder of the extreme dangers of crossing the Channel in these unseaworthy vessels and how vital it is that we stop the boats and prevent people from making these perilous journeys."

The first migrants to cross the Channel to the UK in 2024 were recorded on Saturday morning after 27 days of no crossings - the longest gap in small boat arrivals for just over five years.

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Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron said the reported deaths was "heartbreaking".

He told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: "It's heartbreaking when these things happen, and the loss of life that takes place.

"And you can only think about what an appalling end it would be, and the cold waters of the Channel in the middle of the night, it breaks my heart to hear about it.

"But it just shows we've got to stop the boats, we've got to stop this illegal trade in human beings."

The tragedy comes weeks after an official report into the deaths of at least 27 migrants in the Channel in November 2021 found the response team in Dover was "insufficient" to react to the incident.

The victims of what is the deadliest incident involving a migrant boat trying to cross the Channel included a pregnant woman and three children.