A migrant has died throughout an try and cross the Channel in a small boat from northern France to England, French maritime authorities have mentioned.
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 mentioned.
The boat returned to the seashore however regardless of the efforts of police and medics the person was declared useless on the scene, it added.
He’s the sixth individual 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 instructed AFP information company.
“This boat set off once more as soon as it had dropped off the individuals who wished to disembark on the seashore,” it added.
Authorities mentioned the boat was “fairly closely loaded” however didn’t say how many individuals have been on board.
Dwelling Workplace figures present that greater than 1,600 migrants have crossed the Channel in small boats prior to now week, with 51 individuals arriving on Friday alone.
A minimum of 3,720 individuals have made the crossing up to now this yr, a rise of 11% on the identical interval final yr.
A report variety of migrants died whereas trying to make the damaging crossing in 2024.
In line with the Workplace for the Struggle towards Illicit Trafficking of Migrants, 78 individuals died whereas making an attempt to achieve 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 Dwelling Workplace mentioned: “All of us need to finish harmful small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border safety.
“The people-smuggling gangs don’t care if the weak individuals they exploit stay or die, so long as they pay. We’ll cease at nothing to dismantle their enterprise fashions and produce them to justice.”
On 27 February, Dwelling Secretary Yvette Cooper met her French counterpart, Inside Minister Bruno Retailleau, to agree a raft of measures geared toward tackling people-smuggling gangs.
These embody 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.
