By Juliette Jabkhiro and Inti Landauro
PARIS, April 9 (Reuters) – Four people died after a small boat carrying migrants attempting to cross from France to Britain sank in the English Channel, prompting a search and rescue operation off the coast south of Calais, authorities said on Thursday.
The boat was carrying about 30 people, a local mayor said, when it ran into trouble at about 7 a.m. (0500 GMT), between the beaches of Equihen and Ecault.
“Around 30 migrants 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,” Equihen Mayor Christian Fourcroy told Reuters.
The situation was still being assessed and the casualty toll could rise, local authorities said.
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 migrants up from along the shore.
The Boulogne prosecutor has opened an investigation into the incident, a police source said.
OVER 4,700 CROSSED CHANNEL JANUARY 1-APRIL 4
Some 4,776 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 migrants has helped drive support for the Reform UK party led by Nigel Farage, a right-wing populist and 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 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.
(Reporting by Inti Landauro, Juliette Jabkhiro, Additional reporting and writing by Charlotte Van Campenhout, Editing by Alex Richardson, Richard Lough and Bernadette Baum)
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