At least 27 migrants died after Border Force ‘rescued wrong boat'

Telegraph

03-03-2025

At least 27 migrants died crossing the Channel after a Border Force vessel rescued those in a different boat, an inquiry heard.
Dozens of migrants were aboard an inflatable dinghy that sank in the early hours of Nov 24 2021 in the single deadliest disaster on the route.
An independent inquiry into the tragedy, chaired by Sir Ross Cranston, heard that a 16-year-old boy rang for help from the dinghy and was told a rescue boat was on its way and to stop calling.
But instead of finding the boat in question, a Border Force vessel rescued migrants from a different dinghy and marked the initial incident as 'closed'.
It would take 12 hours from when passengers first began calling for two remaining survivors to be rescued – out of at least 33 who are understood to have been on board.
The disaster occurred in a month when 6,971 people crossed the Channel in 209 small boats – the largest total number of vessels to attempt the voyage in a single month.
Opening the first full hearing, Rory Phillips KC, the counsel to the Cranston Inquiry, described how migrants gathered on a Dunkirk beach in the 'cold and dark' after being contacted by members of a criminal gang and 'encouraged to make the crossing'.
'They were fed misinformation – promised that once they entered British waters they would be accepted as asylum seekers,' he said.
Yet around three hours after the migrants set off from France, the boat 'began to take on a significant amount of water and became swamped', Mr Phillips added.
As passengers 'vainly' tried to bail out water, the inquiry was told that passengers began making 'panicked calls for help'.
However, while the 'first successful call' to UK authorities came through at about 1.30am, the Border Force's HMC Valiant did not leave Dover until 2.22am and 'took another hour to reach the last known location of the boat'.
By the time the Valiant arrived in the area where the dinghy was last reported at about 3.24am, it was unable to locate the boat, which had 'likely' drifted away, the inquiry was told.
A survivability expert who has assisted the inquiry believes most of those aboard the boat 'were still alive' at this point.
'Marked incident as closed'
Continuing, Mr Phillips said: 'Between then and 6.10am in the morning, the Valiant searched the Sandettie area and located three other small boats rescuing 98 people in all.
'And to put this in context a total of 367 people were rescued by Border Force in the Channel that night despite it being as [what] one Border force staff member has described as 'not a busy night in comparison to other nights around that time'.'
He added: 'None of the boats found by Valiant matched the description of 'Charlie' but soon after 5am the valiant reported that they had embarked 35 people from that boat.
'In fact the boat was not Charlie, but one that had been identified by the coastguard as 'Lima'.'
He said: 'In short the UK authorities updated their trackers to say that Charlie had been embarked and ultimately marked the incident as 'closed'.'
Eventually, the first of the bodies of those who died was found by crew on a French fishing boat at around 12.30pm that day.
The inquiry was also told of how calls to authorities included two from a 16-year-old boy.
The boy, whose first call was transferred by French authorities, sent coordinates from his phone that gave the location of the boat during a 20-minute call with staff from UK Coastguard.
At 2.30am, the inquiry heard the teenager made 'another desperate plea for help'.
Mr Phillips continued: 'He said to the Coastguard that the passengers were finished and that they would all die.
'In response he was told that a rescue boat was on its way he was also asked by the coastguard to stop calling.'
Mr Phillips also said that while one of the smugglers was heard to say there were 33 aboard the vessel, there may also have been small children who were not counted among the missing or the dead.
The bodies of 26 were identified, while another has not been 'conclusively identified'.
Four others who remain missing have also been identified.
The inquiry continues.