A person attempting to reach the United Kingdom irregularly from the northern coast of France died in the English Channel.
An overcrowded vessel fell apart overnight from Sunday to Monday, the Channel and North Sea Maritime Prefecture (Prémar) announced.
Off the French coast, 61 other passengers were rescued, according to Prémar, confirming a report by the daily newspaper La Voix du Nord.
"There were an enormous number of departures. An overloaded vessel broke apart," reported Prémar, "and among the passengers, one person died."
The authorities were alerted at around 02:30, stated Prémar. Surveillance resources, including a tugboat, British vessels, and a French naval helicopter, were deployed to assist those in distress.
Among the rescued, a child and their mother, suffering from hypothermia, were evacuated by helicopter and hospitalised in Boulogne-sur-Mer, where all survivors were attended to by French emergency services.
Including the person who died on Monday, at least 12 migrants have died since the start of 2025 trying to reach England in small boats, which are often precarious and overcrowded.
According to the Office for the Fight against Illegal Immigrant Trafficking (Oltim), 78 migrants died in these perilous crossings in 2024, marking a record since this phenomenon began in 2018. From January to December 2024, over 36,800 people arrived in the UK via makeshift vessels, a 25% increase from 2023.
