27 Migrants Drown Trying to Go From France to U.K. by Boat

PARIS – At least 27 people drowned in icy waters off the coast of France on Wednesday after a boat carrying migrants attempting to reach the UK capsized in the English Channel, one of the worst death tolls in years for migrants attempting the dangerous crossing.

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said the dead, including five women and a little girl, were part of a group whose “extremely fragile” rubber dinghy was found completely emptied by rescue workers. French officials had previously given a death toll of 31 but later revised the number.

Two people were saved but hospitalized with severe hypothermia. It is still unclear where the migrants came from, Darmanin told reporters from Calais.

“It is an absolute tragedy that fills us with anger,” he said.

The drownings came just days after the French and British authorities agreed to do more to curb the number of people at sea. They were also a haunting reminder that five years after the authorities disbanded a sprawling migrant camp in Calais, both countries are still struggling to cope with the flow of migrants in the region.

“France will not allow the canal to become a cemetery,” President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement. He called for an immediate tightening of border controls and increased action with other European nations against immigrant smugglers. For example, Mr Darmanin noted that smugglers sometimes bought boats in Germany and brought them to France for the purpose of smuggling.

Local shipping authorities said they quickly dispatched rescue ships and helicopters after a fishing boat alerted them that several people were killed off the coast of Calais.

Attempts to reach the UK by boat have increased in recent years as authorities crack down on asylum seekers being smuggled in trucks through the Channel Tunnel.

Since the beginning of the year, according to French authorities, there have been 47,000 attempts to cross the English Channel and 7,800 migrants have been rescued from shipwrecks. Seven people had died or disappeared so far this year before the Wednesday incident.

Last week, Decathlon, a major sporting goods chain, announced that it had stopped selling kayaks in its stores in Calais and in Grande-Synthe, another town on the north coast, because they could endanger the lives of migrants who are trying to they cross the canal.

Many migrants – often from countries in Africa or the Middle East such as Iraq and Eritrea – perceive Great Britain as an ideal destination because English is spoken, they already have families or compatriots there and the labor market is more relaxed for undocumented migrants.

But the recent surge in attempts to cross the English Channel by boat reflects a shift in routes rather than an increase in migration, according to migration experts and human rights groups, who say asylum applications in the UK have declined overall this year.

The transitions have become another element of the deteriorating relationship between France and Britain, with each side accusing the other of not doing enough to contain the attempts. As part of an agreement between the two nations, Britain is paying France to disrupt the border crossings through surveillance and patrols.

Mr Darmanin, the interior minister, said 780 police officers and gendarmes were monitoring the coast on Wednesday alone. Over 250 people had been crossed, he said, and 671 had been arrested.

“So it was unfortunately a day like any other,” he added. He said the main culprits for the tragedy were smugglers asking migrants for thousands of euros in exchange for unsafe passage on flimsy ships.

Four smugglers with alleged links to the boat that sank on Wednesday were arrested, Darmanin said.

Migrant rights groups have particularly criticized British officials who they believe have taken an increasingly tough stance on asylum seekers, even threatening to push boats back to France.

“This situation is the result of shameful British politics,” said Pierre Henry, the former director of France Terre D’Asile, a group on migrants’ rights. “France cannot continue to be a subcontractor of this type of migration policy. It’s absurd and ineffective. It just ends up with the most dangerous form of crossing becoming more expensive. What happened today had to happen. ”

France has also been criticized by non-profit groups who say police are harassing migrants in the Calais area in an attempt to get them to leave. An October report by Human Rights Watch described the tactic as “forced misery” – restricting the distribution of food and water, opening tents and confiscating sleeping bags and repeatedly evicting them from camps.

Olivier Caremelle, a local official and former chief of staff to the mayor of Grande-Synthe, which has long been home to migrants and refugees, said Wednesday’s deaths were “expected” given the significant risks posed by the cold seas of the English Channel , heavy shipping and changing weather.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was “shocked and appalled and deeply saddened by the loss of life at sea in the English Channel”. But he added: “I would also like to say that this disaster underscores how dangerous it is to cross the English Channel in this way.”

The French authorities have regularly cleared migrant camps near Calais and are offering migrants the opportunity to move into housing and submit asylum applications. However, many migrants prefer to continue their travels to the UK. One such camp, which housed around 1,000 people in Grande-Synthe, was cleared last week.

Migrants will continue to try to cross the canal, Caremelle said, and they are determined to “get on boats and try their luck in England”. Only a policy that tried to give them opportunities in France “would convince some of them not to take such risks,” he said.