A 40-year-old man died Sunday while trying to cross the Channel from northern France to the UK.
Calais Prefecture said the man, who was of Indian descent, deflated and went into cardiac arrest minutes after the boat he was traveling with, along with about 50 other men, women and children, left the French coast.
They all swam back to shore, but he collapsed and emergency services on the beach tried to revive him but were unable to revive him.
The incident occurred at around 5:30 a.m. local time (4:30 p.m. Japan time) off the coast of the town of Taldingen.
This brings the death toll for this year’s Strait crossing to 57, making it the deadliest year ever for Strait crossings. But that doesn’t seem to have deterred people from attempting the journey.
As of Saturday, more people had crossed the Channel in small boats so far this year than in all of 2023, according to figures released by the Home Office.
29,642 people have traveled so far this year, compared to 29,437 last year. It is unlikely that the 2022 total of 45,755 people arriving by small boat will be surpassed by the end of December 2024. On Saturday, 64 people crossed the Channel in one boat.
According to a statement from the Calais department, “Since then, [last] With Monday evening and the return of favorable weather conditions, pressure on the coastline has intensified and many migrants are trying to reach the sea. ” French authorities said 57 incidents have been recorded since Monday, including 32 attempts intercepted by police.
They added that several attempts were thwarted by police and military police early Sunday, including in Equien-Plage, Calais and Sangat.
They said the dinghy involved in the accident that killed the man was in very poor condition and deflated shortly after departure. The people on the boat found themselves in the water and swam back to the beach. Not everyone had a life jacket.
An investigation has been launched by the public prosecutor’s office in Boulogne-sur-Mer.
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “This is yet another tragic and avoidable loss of life in the Channel, where fatalities are now becoming alarmingly common. , we must not accept the frequency and magnitude of these tragedies as inevitable by becoming immune to them.
“Each death is the death of a desperate man, woman, and child, our fellow human beings, who have to flee from terror, war, and oppression in search of safety. It reminds me that.”
