A small boat carrying 82 migrants attempting to cross the English Channel ran aground on Hardelot beach in northern France early Sunday, leaving two women dead and 16 people injured in the third fatal Channel crossing incident in just over a month.
The vessel set out overnight from Hardelot beach, a few kilometers south of the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer, but the engine failed and the boat began to drift, Christophe Marx, secretary-general of the Pas-de-Calais prefecture, told reporters. A French maritime gendarmerie vessel rescued 17 people and brought them to Boulogne-sur-Mer, while the makeshift boat ran aground with 65 others still on board.
The two women who died, believed to be in their 20s and from Sudan, were most likely crushed or asphyxiated, Marx said. “They were crushed or asphyxiated, as unfortunately often happens on boats … where too many people are packed in,” Marx told reporters. An investigation was underway, he added.
Three of the injured were in very serious condition with burns caused by fuel at the bottom of the boat, Marx said. The other 13 injured sustained less severe injuries.
Sunday’s deaths follow two other fatal incidents in recent weeks. Last month, two men and two women died while trying to board an inflatable boat off the coast of northern France; British authorities arrested a man from Sudan on suspicion of endangering life in that case. The week before, two other people died in similar circumstances off the coast north of Calais.
The U.K. and French governments signed a new multimillion-euro deal last month aimed at reducing the number of migrants crossing the English Channel, with increased police patrols and enhanced surveillance in northern France.
So far this year, more than 6,000 migrants have reached the U.K. after crossing the channel, down 36% from the same period last year — a drop that may partly reflect more unsettled weather, the Associated Press reported.
Before Sunday’s deaths, migrant aid group Utopia 56 said that at least 172 people had died at the French-U.K. border over the past three years, including 123 at sea.