EUROPE: A 10-year-old child and two 30-year-old women have died after a small boat trying to cross the English Channel got into trouble off the north coast of France, French officials say.
Officials said they answered a call for help from the boat, which was carrying 105 people. It had left Blériot Plage beach in Calais on Monday morning.
Three passengers were treated on the boat. An emergency medical team flown by helicopter later confirmed they had died, the French Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea said.
Passengers were taken off a rescue boat at the port of Calais later on Monday morning, AFP news agency reported.
Remembered that three people died overnight off the coast of Calais as they attempted to cross the English Channel, French authorities have said.The Prefect of Pas-de-Calais, Laurent Touvet, indicated those who died were likely crushed to the bottom of the boat. He told reporters that smuggling gangs were responsible for the deaths – and vowed to go after them.
It was initially reported that two of the three were children, and authorities later said the victims were “young people”, with two of them possibly children. Those who died are thought to have been from Egypt and South East Asia. Authorities said the boat was “overloaded” with more than 70 on board.
Mr Touvet also said that another three people who were on a separate boat trying to cross at Neufchâtel-Hardelot were unaccounted for.
A third boat carrying 115 people was rescued by the French navy’s patrol boat. Mr Touvet said no injuries were reported in the third boat, but it marked “probably the highest number we’ve ever seen”.
Latest Home Office figures show 674 migrants in nine boats were brought to Dover on Tuesday and around 180 made the crossing on Wednesday.
The three who died were found after France’s assistance and rescue tug, Abeille Normandie, was called to a rescue at about 05:00 local time (04:00 BST) off the coast of Sangatte, near Calais
Reported by : Our Correspondent I Europe
