A migrant has died throughout an try to cross the Channel in a small boat from northern France to England, French maritime authorities have stated.
The Kuwaiti nationwide, in his sixties, suffered a cardiac arrest on the boat that was carrying him and different migrants on Saturday, the Pas-de-Calais prefecture stated.
The boat returned to the seashore however regardless of the efforts of police and medics the person was declared lifeless on the scene, it added.
He’s the sixth particular person to have died whereas trying to cross the Channel this yr.
The boat set off from Calais in northern France on Saturday morning and “in a short time returned to the seashore with an individual in cardio-respiratory arrest on board”, the French maritime prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea advised AFP information company.
“This boat set off once more as soon as it had dropped off the individuals who needed to disembark on the seashore,” it added.
Authorities stated the boat was “fairly closely loaded” however didn’t say how many individuals have been on board.
Residence Workplace figures present that greater than 1,600 migrants have crossed the Channel in small boats up to now week, with 51 folks arriving on Friday alone.
A minimum of 3,720 folks have made the crossing up to now this yr, a rise of 11% on the identical interval final yr.
A document variety of migrants died whereas trying to make the damaging crossing in 2024.
In line with the Workplace for the Battle towards Illicit Trafficking of Migrants, 78 folks died whereas making an attempt to succeed in England aboard small boats final yr, the very best quantity because the first crossing in 2018.
The UK and France have ramped up efforts to cease Channel crossings, together with intensifying patrols on French seashores, intercepting small boats and apprehending the smugglers who organise the crossings.
In a press release on Friday, the Residence Workplace stated: “All of us wish to finish harmful small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border safety.
“The people-smuggling gangs don’t care if the susceptible folks they exploit stay or die, so long as they pay. We are going to cease at nothing to dismantle their enterprise fashions and produce them to justice.”
On 27 February, Residence Secretary Yvette Cooper met her French counterpart, Inside Minister Bruno Retailleau, to agree a raft of measures geared toward tackling people-smuggling gangs.
These embrace a brand new specialist intelligence and judicial police unit in Dunkirk to hurry up the arrest and prosecution of people-smugglers and coaching drone pilots to assist intercept boats earlier than they attain the ocean.
French authorities will cease migrants on land however not as soon as they take to the ocean.
