Migrant dies seeking to cross Channel
An official of the Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR) talks with migrants outside the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR), as they wait in line to regularise their migratory situation in the country, in Mexico City, Mexico January 24, 2025. PHOTO: REUTERS
A migrant has died and another remains missing after a boat carrying would-be asylum seekers attempting to cross the Channel broke apart overnight Sunday to Monday, French authorities said, with 200 people pulled from the water since Sunday.
Sixty-one migrants were rescued after the accident off the French coast, said France's Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea.
And in two separate incidents on Sunday, another 139 migrants were rescued off northern France, the maritime prefecture added Monday afternoon.
"There were a lot of departures. An overloaded boat broke apart," the prefecture said. "One person died."
Authorities were notified at around 2:30 am (0030 GMT) Monday, with a French rescue tugboat, British vessels and a French navy helicopter deployed to assist the migrants.
The survivors, including a child and his mother suffering from hypothermia, were evacuated by helicopter and hospitalised in the city of Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France.
And the 139 people rescued on Sunday were transported to the northern port city of Calais, said the maritime prefecture.
According to authorities, at least 12 migrants have died since the beginning of 2025 while trying to reach England aboard small boats.
A total of 78 migrants died in 2024 while trying to cross the Channel aboard small boats, a record since the rise of crossings in this area in 2018.
Between January and December 2024, more than 36,800 people arrived in Britain via these dangerous crossings - a 25-percent increase compared to 2023.
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