Three dead, including child, in Channel crossing attempt

A 10-year-old child and two women in their 30s have died after a small boat carrying migrants ran into trouble while attempting to cross the English Channel, according to French authorities.

The vessel had set off from Blériot Plage in Sangatte on Monday morning with 105 people aboard when it got into difficulty off the northern coast of France, the French Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea said, as reported by BBC News.

Rescue teams responded to a distress call, and a medical team was flown out by helicopter to treat those in danger. Three passengers received emergency care on board but were later pronounced dead, officials confirmed.

The Pas-de-Calais prefecture said early findings point to trampling as the cause of the deaths, though a formal investigation has been opened to establish exactly what happened.

Of the remaining 102 people who were on the boat, nine needed medical treatment once they reached shore at the port of Calais, according to the prefecture, per BBC News.

François-Xavier Lauch, the prefect of Pas-de-Calais, placed responsibility for the tragedy on people-smuggling networks, saying they put vulnerable individuals, including children, at grave risk during these crossings, BBC News reported.

The vessel involved was what French officials describe as a "taxi-boat" — a type of crossing that forces migrants to wade into the sea before climbing aboard, rather than boarding from the shoreline directly. The prefecture noted that three other people lost their lives in similar taxi-boat departures just last week.

With Monday's deaths included, the number of migrants who have died attempting the crossing this year has reached 20, the Pas-de-Calais prefecture said. That figure is roughly in line with the 21 deaths recorded over the same period in 2025.

Every year, thousands of people attempt the journey across the Channel, one of the busiest and most hazardous shipping routes in the world, with crossings typically increasing during the warmer summer months when conditions are calmer.

According to Home Office figures cited by BBC News, the UK saw its highest daily total of migrant arrivals so far this year last Wednesday, when 781 people reached the country across ten small boats. Two further boats also arrived last week in Kent, at Folkestone and Samphire Hoe, without being stopped by UK authorities.

In July of last year, Britain and France struck a "one in, one out" agreement intended to discourage Channel crossings. Under the arrangement, the UK can return some small boat arrivals to France while accepting an equal number of individuals from France who have a legitimate case to enter Britain.

The UK government said in August that it was making headway against small boat crossings, noting that the proportion of people arriving this way in 2026 was significantly lower than during the same period in 2025, while acknowledging more work was needed to shut down what it called a harmful trade.

Figures show that 18,609 people had successfully crossed the Channel by small boat so far in 2026, a drop of 42% compared with the 32,188 recorded over the same stretch of 2025, BBC News reported.