Four migrants, including a child, die trying to cross the English Channel

French authorities said four people, including a two-year-old boy, died while trying to cross the English Channel.

Authorities said they were found “unconscious” and were likely “trampled to death” in two separate boats that suffered engine failure.

French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau called the deaths a “terrible tragedy,” adding that people smugglers “have the blood of these people on their hands.”

In one of the incidents, a French emergency service picked up 15 people, including the boy, and one person was flown to a French hospital with burns to his legs.

The prefect of the Pas-de-Calais region, Jacques Billant, said one of the boats was off the coast of Boulogne-Sur-Mer in northern France and was carrying “almost 90 people” overnight.

He said it got into trouble after an engine failure and called French emergency services.

“A French rescue boat went to the scene of the accident and picked up 15 migrants, including an unconscious child.

“The medical team sent by helicopter could not save the two-year-old child and he was declared brought dead.”

According to Boulogne-Sur-Mer prosecutor Guirec Le Bras, the little boy, who he said was born in Germany to a Somali mother, was “trampled to death.”

One person on the ship with burns to his legs was flown to the hospital, Billant added.

The remaining passengers on the boat continued their journey, the AFP news agency reported.

On a separate, overcrowded small boat, another incident occurred overnight off the coast of Calais when “several engine failures led to mass panic and some migrants fell into the water but were rescued,” Billant told reporters.

“Three people – two men and a woman – were then discovered unconscious in this small boat,” he added. Billant said they were all about 30 years old.

“They were probably trampled to death during the stampede,” Billant said.

A statement from the French coast guard said 71 people had been rescued on board, including the three people found unconscious.

The Boulogne-sur-Mer public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation, the coastguard added.

French authorities say 51 migrants have lost their lives this year trying to cross the English Channel to reach Britain.

“Our government will step up the fight against these mafias who get rich by organizing these death crossings,” Retailleau said in a post on X.

British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, also posting on

“The gangs don’t care whether people live or die – it’s a terrible trade in lives,” she said.

She said she contacted Retailleau on Saturday and that they met in Italy at the G7 meeting earlier this week where they discussed the matter.

She said earlier that an action plan agreed at that meeting calls for “new international joint investigative teams to pursue the gangs, financial and supply chains.”

Earlier this week, the country’s prime minister, Michel Barnier, said France needed a tougher immigration policy.

Barnier said he would deal “ruthlessly” with human traffickers, adding that they “exploit misery and desperation” and encourage undocumented asylum seekers to cross the English Channel and the Mediterranean.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had previously stated this “absolutely determined” to take action against the smuggling gangs Facilitation of crossings, but did not set a time frame for this.

Home Office figures show that 395 migrants arrived in the UK in small boats without entry permits on October 4th, and 59 arrived on September 29th.

So far in 2024, more than 25,000 people have crossed the English Channel.

Between 2018 and September 2024, at least 194 migrants died trying to cross the English Channel. according to estimates from the International Organization for Migrationwhich is part of the United Nations.