Four people died after a group of illegal migrants attempted to board an inflatable dinghy and cross the English Channel from France to Britain, prompting a rescue operation off the coast of Calais, authorities said on Thursday.
Local mayor Christian Fourcroy, who said he had been briefed by emergency services, said a group of about 30 illegal migrants had waded out into the water to reach the dinghy between the beaches of Equihen and Ecault at about 7:00 (05:00 GMT) when they got into trouble.
"(They) tried to board the boat. Things went wrong and, let’s just say, they floundered in the water. Among them were two women and two men who died,” Fourcroy told Reuters. A fifth person was in a critical condition, he said.
The dinghy motored into deeper waters and continued its journey to Britain, the local authorities said. Earlier the prefecture, the local office of the interior ministry, had said the dinghy had sunk.
Over the past year, traffickers seeking to evade police have increasingly used inflatable dinghies - dubbed 'taxi-boats' by the authorities - to cruise along the coasts off northern France and Belgium, picking illegal migrants up from along the shore.
The Boulogne prosecutor has opened an investigation into the incident, a police source said.
Southern England lies just 33 kilometres from France at the narrowest point of the channel, and Britain remains a favoured destination for many illegal migrants due to family links, language, and the belief in better employment prospects.
Some 4,776 illegal migrants crossed the channel, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, between January 1 and April 4, according to UK government data. About 41,500 people crossed it last year.
The influx of illegal migrants has helped drive support for the Reform UK party led by Nigel Farage, a longtime immigration hard-liner. In France, Marine Le Pen's National Rally party has become the single-biggest party in parliament on the back of a tough anti-immigration stance.
Last year, Britain and France agreed on a "one in, one out" scheme, under which illegal migrants arriving in Britain by small boat can be returned to France, with an equal number allowed to enter Britain via a legal route. The measure aims to deter dangerous and illegal crossings from France.
"Policing the channel alone is not enough to prevent dangerous crossings," Imran Hussain of the UK's Refugee Council said in a statement reacting to Thursday's deadly incident, adding safer pathways needed to be created.
(Reporting by Inti Landauro, Juliette Jabkhiro, Additional reporting and writing by Charlotte Van Campenhout and Catarina Demony, Editing by Richard Lough, Bernadette Baum and Keith Weir)
